■-:^;V!:!r^t5« 












i,-,,fi',.v.wXIU,(k,Ji.4i'vt-"vaH''f ■•' ■ 












imm 






mm 






:|lJi«;«)lk^i;3 






A;; 






^1*; 



GREAT NATIONS 

FRANCE 




,?!?.^A>yM' 



j^^^,fe'. 0^A^ 



^ 



f^^.T^tyrU; 



</. ' /// J^ 



\% 



■# 



FRANCE 

THE NATION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 
FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO THE ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



BY 
WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON 




NEW YORK 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



,H2 






PRINTED AT 
THE COMPLETE PRESS 
WEST NORWOOD 
LONDON, ENGLAND 



TO MY FRIEND 
GEORGE WHALE 



PREFACE 

THOUGH interrupted from time to time by pressure of 
other work, the writing of this book has occupied 
me for a number of years. It was therefore begun 
without any anticipation of the crisis which in August 19 14 
was to unite France and Kngland in a common cause against 
a common foe. Of the additional interest which their alHance 
has given to the completion of my task it is scarcely necessary 
to speak, but reference may be permitted to another point 
which during the preparation of my last chapters has been 
always uppermost in my mind. C The war which is now raging 
is, as it cannot be too often repeated, essentially a conflict of 
principles, and the principles for which France and her allies 
are fighting to-day are just those principles of democratic 
government which she was herself the first among European 
nations to proclaim in unmistakable terms to the world. The 
Revolution, it is true, appeared to end in disaster for the 
democratic cause; /a hundred years ago all Burope was in 
the midst of a sweeping reaction ; everjnvhere the powers of 
darkness seemed to have entered upon a new tenure of life ; 
in our own country, in Professor Pollard's vivid phrase, the 
Tories were sitting " upon the safety-valve of constitutional 
reform." But the great movement, though checked, could 
not be permanently arrested; 1830, 1832, 1848, 1871 are 
dates which mark its further progress in the teeth of ever- 
reviving opposition ; the present struggle against militarism 
and autocracy is only its continuation ; and the overthrow 
of Prussia and of all that Prussia has stood for will be the^ 
victory of the ideals by which from the outset it was inspired. 
Hence the significance of the Revolution in Russia, which is 

vii 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

yet in its early stages as I write, but which happily gives 
every promise of stability ; hence the significance of the entry 
into the alliance of the great American Republic, pledged, 
in President Wilson's words, to " spend her blood and might 
for the principles that gave her birth." In the light of these 
things, and of the vast changes now impending, the history 
of France — the standard-bearer of liberty among the peoples — 
is fraught with fresh meaning for those of us who believe that 
the triumph of dem.ocracy is the only guarantee of the future 

^of civilization. 

My warmest thanks are due to the friends who have helped me 
in various ways during the progress of my work : in particular, 
to Mr J. K. Mansion, B.-es-I/., for his kindness in reading 
the whole of my manuscript and for many valuable criticisms 
and suggestions ; and to Mr C. C. Wood, for similar services 
while the book was passing through the press, and for his 
patience and skill in the verification or correction of innumer- 

^able difficult points of detail. To Mr Wood I am furthermore 
indebted for the Index. I desire also to express my gratitude 
to the lyibrairie I^arousse of Paris for their great courtesy in 
supplying many of the blocks which I have used in this 
volume, and for providing information concerning others of 
the illustrations chosen. 

WIIylylAM HKNRY HUDSON 
I/ONDON, May 191 7 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 

BOOK I : THE GAULS, THE ROMANS, AND 
THE FRANKS 

CHAFTBR PAOB 

I. Gaui< before the coming of the Franks i 
II. The Franks : The Merwing or Merovingian 

Dynasty 14 

III. The KarIvIng or Cari^ovingian Dynasty 27 

IV. Chari^emagne 35 

V. The lyAST OF THE KARI^INGS 46 

BOOK II : THE FEUDAL MONARCHY 

I. The First Four Capetian Kings 57 

II. Feudai^ism and Chivai^ry 67 

III. The First Crusade 77 

IV. I.OUIS VI 89 
V. I^ouis VII 97 

VI. Phu^ippe II : I^ouis VIII 103 

VII. I,ouis IX 119 

VIII. The Spring-time of the Renaissance 134 

IX. Phh^ippe III : Phii^ippe IV 145 

X. The Knd of the Capetian Dynasty 153 

ix 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 
BOOK III : THE HOUSE OF VALOIS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Thk Hundred Years' War : The First Stage 158 

II. The Hundred Years' War : The Second Stage 163 

III. The Hundred Years' War : The Third Stage 167 

IV. The Hundred Years' War : The lyAST Stage 172 
V. France during the Hundred Years' War 184 

VI. lyouis XI 194 

VII. Chari.es VIII : I,ouis XII 216 

VIII. Francois I : Henri II 230 

IX. The Renaissance in France 245 

X. The I/Ast of the Vai^ois : The Reformation in 

^ France and the Wars of Rei^igion 261 



BOOK IV : THE HOUSE OF BOURBON 

I. Henri IV 289 

II. lyouis XIII : First Period 314 

III. lyOuis XIII : Second Period 326 

IV. lyouis XIV : I. The Administration of Mazarin 346 

V. I,ouis XIV : II. The Zenith of Absoi^ute 

Monarchy 362 

VI. lyouis XIV: III. The Period of Deci^ine 380 

VII. ' lyE Grand Sie^ci^e ' 404 

VIII. I<ouis XV : I. The Regency 419 

IX. I^ouis XV : II. The Monarchy 438 

f^X. I^ouis XVI : From his Accession to 1789 455 



CO,N,TE,NTS 

BOOK V : THE REVOLUTION AND THE 

EMPIRE 

lAPXER PAOK 

I. PRHlylMINARY 470 

II. The vStates-Generai, and the Constituent 

AsSEMBIyY 485 

III. The lyEGISI^ATIVE ASSEMBI^Y 497 

IV. The Nationai, Convention 506 
V. The Directory 522 

VI. The C0NSXJI.ATE 530 

VII. The Empire 538 

BOOK VI : FRANCE SINCE 1815 

I. The Restoration 554 

II. The Second Repubi^ic 563 

III. The Second Empire 572 

lyisT OF Important Dates 583 

Index 587 



XI 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

GENEALOGICAL TABLES 

The Mbrwing Dynasty 
Thk KarIvIng Dynasty : 

{a) To Chari^emagnk 

(b) The I/ATEr Kari^ings 
The House of Capet ic 

The House of Vai^ois 22 

Tabi,e to expi^ain the War of the Spanish Suc- 

cession 33 

The Bourbon Dynasty . ^ 41 

MAPS 

The Empire of Chari^es the Great, c. 800 

France at the Accession of Hugues Capet 

France at the End of the Hundred Years' War ii 

France under the Oi,d R]feGiME 4! 

France : The Departments 41 



xu 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAes 



Jeanne Darc Frontispiece — 

B. 1412, d. 1 43 1. From the statue by Henri Chapu in the 
Luxembourg. Photo Alinari. 

The Arena, Arles 10 

The date of building of this arena or amphitheatre, the - 
largest in France, is uncertain, but it is known that 
several Roman emperors held games there. Toward the 
end of the eighth century it passed into the hands of the 
Arabs, who converted it into a fortress and flanked it 
with four enormous observation towers, two of which 
are still standing and are shown in the illustration. X 
Photo. 

The Maison Carrj^e, Nimes 10-^ 

" One of the most beautiful of ancient buildings in the world, 
as well as the best preserved. Malfei, who had seen all 
the buildings of Italy, expresses himself with so much 
admiration in speaking of this that he says the sight of 
it alone is sufficient to give a taste for architecture to 
those who never had any. The order is Corinthian ; the 
ornaments are so exquisitely delicate, and the propor- 
tions so just, that nothing, even in the age of Augus- 
tus, ever surpassed it. It is surrounded with thirty 
columns. Its length is 72 feet and its breadth 36 feet. 
M. Seguier supposes it to have been consecrated to Caius 
and Lucius Caesar, the adopted sons of Augustus." — An 
inscription upon a model of the Maison Carrie in the 
Bodleian, Oxford. CollectionJRischgitz. 

A Merovingian Villa 22 " 

This reconstruction after M. Charles Gamier (see L' Habitation 
humaine, by C. Garnier and A. Ammann, p. 593) is 
interesting among other reasons because it shows very 
clearly that the Merovingian villa was the rude germ of 
the wooden feudal castle of the tenth century, which in 
turn evolved into the solid stone structure of the early 
eleventh. Special features deserving notice are, there- 
fore, the central tower, which afterward developed into 

xiii 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

no. 

the keep, and the- defensive stockade, later reinforced 
by the moat. " The Prankish villa always consisted of 
two distinct parts, sharply separated from one another 
and designated by different names ; on the one hand there 
was the residence properly so called of the master and 
his family (curtis), the friends who were his guests and 
his personal domestics sharing this with him ; on the 
other, there were the buildings designed for the slaves, 
the animals, and all the implements useful in agricul- 
tural labour" {op. cit., -p. 591). These particulars indi- 
cate that such an establishment was on a very extensive 
scale and that its proprietor was evidently a man of 
considerable wealth and consequence. Reproduced by 
permission of Messrs Hachette &> Co., Paris. 

5. The Iron Crown of Chari^emagne 

Preserved in the Treasury of Monza Cathedral. With this 
the Lombard kings, it is said, were crowned at Pavia, 
their capital, or Milan, or perhaps Monza. It was used 
by Charles V, who crowned himself with it at Bologna 
in 1530, and by Napoleon at Milan in 1805 (p. 538)- In 
1859 it was carried off by the Austrians, but was restored 
in 1866. Perhaps the original was a simple iron crown, 
or possibly only the interior circlet of iron (visible in the 
picture), which tradition asserted to have been formed 
of one of the nails of the Cross, brought by Helena from 
Jerusalem. The golden, jewelled exterior dates perhaps 
* from about iioo. It is a simpler and apparently later 

work than the imperial crown figured below. (Condensed 
from note in Mr H. B. Cotterill's Medieval Italy.) Photo 
G. Bianchi, Monza. 

6. Tim SO-CALLED Crown of Charlemagne 

" This magnificent crown, surmounted by a cross and arched 
diadem, is in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna. There 
is great divergence of opinion as to its date. Some 
authorities, as Bock — ^with whom I agree — ^believe the 
crown itself to be early Italian work, and the diadem 
with the name ' Conrad ' to have been a later addition. 
In this case there is just a possibility that the crown is 
' actually that which was used by Leo III to crown Charles 
the Great. But some patriotic Teutons . . . assert that 
both parts were undoubtedly made in Germany, and 
they insist that the whole cannot be anything but eleventh- 
century work, and therefore must be an imperial diadem 
made specially (at Mainz ?) for the coronation of Conrad II 
and his consort Gisela in 1027. . . . The arched diadem 
bears, worked in pearls, the words Chuonradus Dei Gratia 
Imperator Augustus. The crown itself is a mass of 
precious stones, gold filigree, and pearls. It has three 
pictures in enamel representing (i) Christ, between two 
angels, as King of Kings ; (2) David as the King of 

xiv 



IG. 



PA6B 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Manly Courage ; (3) Solomon as the King of Justice and 
Wisdom ; (4) Hezekiah as the King of Piety." (Mr H. B. 
Cotterill's note in his Medieval Italy.) Photo by S. 
Schramm, Vienna, photographer to the Court of Rumania. 

7. Facsimii^e of Part of the Strassburg Oaths 48 - 

The part reproduced gives the oath taken by Ivouis, as pre- 
served in the unique manuscript of Nithard's Historiarum 
Libri'IV, Book III, chap, v (Bibliotheque Nationale, 
MS. 9768, fonds latin). 

lyouis took the oath in Romance, and Charles repeated 
it in German. The second oath was taken, in Romance 
and in German, by the armies of the two Kings. Nithard's 
manuscript gives the Romance and the German versions 
of both oaths, and is a document of supreme interest to 
philologists. (See p. 49.) 

8. The CastIvE of Monti^hj^ry 64*^ 

Of the great castle of Montlh^ry, between Paris and ]^tampes, 
all that remains to-day is the keep, with the adjoining 
stair-turret. The substructures of four other towers and 
of the main walls, and also of the three fortified terraces 
which separated the castle from the town below, are still 
plainly discernible, however, and, founding on these, the 
well-known artist and archaeologist P. Hoffbauer has 
reconstituted the castle as it appeared in the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries. 

The original fortress was built in the eleventh century 
by a younger son of the house of Montmorency. Under 
Philippe I it was the stronghold and retreat of the brigand 
Hugues de Cr^cy (see pp. 65, 90). From Larousse, 
" Histoire de France." 

9. A Crusader Knight 74^ 

Prom a French bronze of the fourteenth century in the 
National Museum, Florence. Photo Brogi. 

o. The ChAteau Gaii.i.ard iio ^ 

Built by Richard I in 1 197 on a height above the village of 
lyes Andelys to command the navigation of the Seine and 
protect Normandy against Philippe-Auguste. Owing to 
its position, its triple lines of outworks, its seventeen 
towers, and its walls of from 8 to 14 feet in thickness, 
it was at the time deemed impregnable, yet it was 
captured by Philippe in 1204 (see p. iii). It was after- 
ward used as a State prison, and was the scene of the 
murder of Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Ivouis X, in 
1 3 15. Though, except for the donjon, it is now in ruins, 
it is considered one of the finest specimens of the Norman 
castle. Our illustration is, of course, reproduced from 
Turner's well-known picture in the Seine et Loire series. 

XV 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

11. Thb Cathedraiv of Notre^-Damb 

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame is the most imposing thirteenth- 
century monument in Paris. It was begun in the twelfth 
century by Bishop Maurice de Sully, on the site of a 
church dating back to the fourth century, but only the 
apse and part of the nave were built at this time. The 
principle fa9ade was begun under Philippe- Auguste, and 
it was under Louis IX that Jean de Chelles, the only 
architect of Notre-Dame whose name has come down to 
us, built in 1257 ^^^ southern fagade and several of the 
chapels which surround the choir. During the course of 
the eighteenth century and of the First Empire the 
appearance of the cathedral was much altered by ill- 
judged restorations ; it was much neglected and was 
threatening ruin when in 1845 the great architects Lassus 
and VioUet-le-Duc undertook to save the monument and 
restored to it much of its early splendour. X Photo. 

12. Portrait of IvOuis IX 124' 

B. 12 15, d. 1270. From an engraving by Pedretti after the 
portrait by de Creuse. 

13. lyOUIS IX AND Bl^ANCHE OF CaSTII^K I24' 

i From an ivory medallion in the Cluny Museum. Blanche of 

Castile was bom in 1188, and <Ued in 1252. Photo A. 
Giraudon. 

14. The Cathedrai,, Amiens 136'' 

This " Parthenon of Gothic architecture," as VioUet-le-Duc 
called it, has served as a model for many other monuments 
in France and other countries, particularly for Cologne 
Cathedral. It was erected in 1220-88 by Robert de 
I^uzarches, Thomas de Cormont, and the latter' s son 
Renault. The towers of the west fagade belong respec- 
tively to the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries ; the 
west portal was completed in the fourteenth. It has 
been calculated that the erection of such a building to- 
day would entail an expenditure of at least ;^4,ooo,ooo. 
X Photo. 

15. The Sainte-Chapei<le 142^ 

Besides the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris possesses two 
other churches dating from the thirteenth century, Saint- 
Julien-le-Pauvre and the Sainte-Chapelle. 

The latter, the most perfect monument in pure Gothic 
style to be found in Europe, was built by Louis IX in 
1245. It formed a part of the Palais de la Cit6, where 
Louis often resided, and was intended to serve as his 
private chapel. It consists of two stories : the ' lower 
chapel,' intended for the people and officials who dwelt 
within the precincts of the Palais, and the ' upper chapel,' 
reserved for tli§ Ki^ig and his f a,mily. To give the church 

xvi 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

5IG. PAGE 

more elegance, its architect, Pierre de Montereau, sup- 
ported all the weight of the vaulted roof on outer but- 
tresses, and was thus able to admit the light through 
vast windows of marvellous design and colouring. During 
the Revolution the Sainte-Chapelle was turned into a 
wheat-store, and suffered other vicissitudes. It was 
restored in 1837 by VioUet-le-Duc. X Photo. 

16. The PaIvA-CK of the Popes, Avignon 148"^ 

This heavy and fortress-like pile, flanked by six (originally 
seven) towers, is composed of an irregular assemblage of 
buildings constructed by five successive Popes (1316-64) 
during the period of the ' B abylonish Captivity ' (seep. 149). 
Avignon remained a papal possession till 1791, when it 
was united to France. X Photo. 

17. The Batti^e of Poitiers i6o ^ 

Miniature from a French manuscript in the Biblioth^que 
Nationale. From Larousse, " Hisioire de France." 

18. The Death of Du Guescun 164?^ 

From a miniature in a manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques 
de France, or Chroniques de Saint-Denis (Bibliotheque 
Nationale). From Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

19. The House of Jacques Cceur, Bourges 172 ^ 

Now the Palais de Justice. Built in the latter half of the 
fifteenth century, and an admirable example of Gothic 
architecture applied to domestic purposes (see p. 144). 
The porch of the facade was originally surmounted by 
a statue of Charles VII. The chapel on the first floor 
above the entrance contains ceiling-paintings of the 
fifteenth century. The statue of Jacques Coeur faces 
the building. X Photo. 

20. The Pi,ace de Greve in the Fifteenth Century i86 -" 

This ' place ' has a sinister interest in the history of France. 
As early as the fifteenth century it was a place of execu- 
tion, and it was here that in 1627 Richelieu struck a 
powerful blow at the custom of duelling (see p. 335) . The 
view is reproduced from a drawing by F. Hoffbauer in 
Les Rives de la Seine a travers les Ages (Paris, H. I^aurens). 

21. Portrait of I^ouis XI 200 ^ 

B. 1423, d. 1483. From a crayon drawing in the British 
Museum. Collection Rischgitz. 

22. Portrait of Chari^es the Boi<d 200 ^ 



Last Duke of Burgundy ; b. 1433, d. 1477. Collection 
Rischgitz. 

b 



xvu 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

no. PACK 

23. Portrait of Francois I 232 < 

B. 1494, d. 1547. From the portrait by Titian in the lyouvre. 
X Photo. 

24. Paris : View of the City in the Sixteenth 

Century 242.^ 

This drawing is one of the scholarly reproductions for which 
its author, F. HofEbauer, is well known, and it is inserted 
here from Les Rives de la Seine a tr avers les Ages (Paris, 
H. lyEurens). In the foreground are shown the prepara- 
tions for building the Pont-Neuf, begun about 1578. 
This bridge was carried across the river and rests upon 
the two small islands, the Ile-aux-Bureaux and the He 
de Bussy, seen on the right. From left to right we see 
the Pont-aux-Meuniers, the Conciergerie, the Moulin de 
la Monnaie, the Tour de Montgomery, the Palais de St 
Ivouis, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Maison des l^tuves, and 
the Pont Saint-Michel. 

25. The Pai^ais Ducai,, Nancy ^ 246^ 

The palace illustrates the latest development of domestic 
Gothic in France before the transition to the Renaissance 
^ type of architecture. The handsome porch dates from the 

early sixteenth century, but the equestrian statue of 
Antoine de lyorraine {d. 1544) above the door is the 
work of the modem sculptor Viard. X Photo. 

26. Portrait of Rabei^ais 250^ 

B. 1495 {?), d. 1553. From a portrait in the Geneva I^ibrary. 

27. Portrait of Montaigne 250" 

B. 1533, d. 1592. Engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin, 
from the original painting at the castle of Montaigne. 
Collection Rischgitz. 

28. The Chateau of Amboise 254 ' 

This castle came into the possession of the French Crown in 
1434, and was a favourite residence of the Valois kings. 
Here Charles Vlll was born, and here he met with the 
accident which caused his death (see p. 225). It was 
the centre of the Conspiracy of Amboise (see p. 269) and 
the scene of the butchery which followed, among those 
who witnessed the executions of the conspirators being 
Catherine de Medicis, her three sons, and Fran9ois' 
young bride, Mary, afterward Queen of Scots. The 
castle was long used as a State prison, and its subterranean 
oubliettes, originally constructed by l^ouis XI, enjoyed 
a sinister reputation. Under the Restoration it became 
the property of the Orleans family. It is now an asylum 
for military veterans. X Photo. 

xviii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

29. The ChAteau of Bi,ois 254 

First built by the Counts of Blois, from whom it was pur- 
chased toward the end of the fourteenth century by 
I^ouis, Duke of Orleans, son of Charles V. With the 
accession of the Duke's grandson, luouis XII, it became 
a residence of the French kings, and Fran9ois I spent 
large sums of money in its enlargement and embellish- 
ment, the wing which bears his name being one of the 
masterpieces of Renaissance architecture. The castle 
is very rich in historical associations. In it I^uis XII 
was born ; in it Henri IV and Margaret of Valois were 
married ; in it the Duke of Guise and his brother the 
Cardinal were assassinated by order of Henry III (see 
p. 285) ; in it Catherine de Medicis died ; in it Marie 
de Medicis was imprisoned b}'^ her son lyouis XIII, who 
afterward presented it to his brother Gaston of Orleans. 
Here also for a short time in 1814 Marie-Louise held her 
Court after Paris had capitulated. It was then neglected 
and used as a barracks, but in 1880-87 it was restored 
at great cost. X Photo. 

\o. Specimens of Pai^issy Earthenware 258 ^ 

These ornate dishes are preserved in the Louvre, and are 
striking examples of the standard reached in the minor 
arts of the French Renaissance. Photo Mansell. 

\i. Portrait of Fran^^ois II 262 ^ 

B. 1544, d. 1560. From a contemporary pencil drawing by 
Francois Clouet. Photo A, Giraudon. 

\2. Portrait of Francois, Second Duke of Guise 262 ^ 

B. 1519, d. 1563. From a contemporary pencil drawing by 
C. Dumonstier. Photo A. Giraudon. 

3. The Cardinal of I^orraine 262 ^ 

Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine ; b. 1524, d. 1574. From a 
contemporary drawing of the Clouet school. Photo 
A . Giraudon. 

4. Portrait of the Third Duke of Guise 262 ^ 

Henri le Balafre, third Duke of Guise ; b. 1550, d. 1588. From 
a contemporary portrait in the Louvre. Photo A. 
Giraudon. 

5. Portrait of Antoine of Bourbon 264 ^ 

Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre ; 6. 1518, d. 1562. From 
a drawing by Frangois Clouet. Photo A. Giraudon. 

5. Portrait of lyouis of Bourbon 264 ^ 

Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Cond^ ; b. 1530, d. 1569. From 
a drawing of the Clouet school. Photo A. Giraudon. 

xix 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

¥10. 

37. Portrait of Admirai. Coi^igny 

Gaspard de Colignj-, Admiral of France ; b. 1517, d. 1572. 
From a drawing by Francois Clouet. Photo A. Giraudon. 

38. Portrait of Jeannb d'Albret 

Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of Navarre, mother of Henri IV ; 
b. 1528, d. 1572. From a drawing by Francois Clouet. 
Photo A. Giraudon. 

39. Portrait of Catherine de Mi^dicis in 1561 

B. 1519, d. 1589. From the portrait by, an unknown artist 
in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Photo A. Giraudon. 

40. Henri IV in 1556 

From a contemporary painting. Photo A. Giraudon. 

41. Portrait of the Duke of Mayenne 

B. 1554, d. 1 61 1. From a contemporary drawing. Photo 
A. Giraudon. . 

42. Henri IV and Marie de Mfjdicis 

From the medal by Dupre, which was struck in 1603 to 
commemorate their marriage. Henri IV was born in 
1553 and died in 1610. Marie de M^dicis was born in 
* 1573 and died in 1642. Photo A. Giraudon. 

43. Medai,i.ion Portrait of Maximiuen de Bejthune, 

Duke of Sui,i.y 

B. 1560, d. 1641. Photo A. Giraudon. 

44. Henri IV at Chartres 

From a painting in the Musee de Chartres by an unknown 
artist of the Flemish school. L. L. Photo. 

45. lyEONORA GaI^IGAI 

D. 'I617. From a contemporary portrait. From Larousse, 
" Histoire de France." 

46. Portrait of Concini 

Concino Concini, Mar^chal d'Ancre ; d. 161 7. From a drawing 
by D. Dumonstier. Photo A. Giraudon. 

47. Portrait of Henri II de Bourbon, Prince of 

Cond:^ 

B. 1588, d. 1646. From a painting by Michel Lasne. From 
Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

XX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

48. Portrait of Chari.es d'Ai^bert, Duke of IvUynes 316- 

B. 1578, d. 1621. From a painting by Moncornet. From 
Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

49. Portrait of lyouis XIII 322 ^ 

B. 1601, d. 1643. Collection Rischgitz. 

50. Portrait OF Richei^ieu 328- 

Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu ; h. 1585, d. 
1642. From an engraving by J. Lubin. Photo Mansell. 

51. A Bird's-eye View of La Rocheli^e at the Time 

OF THE vSlEGE OF 1627 332 - 

The entrance to the basin for ships is defended by two towers, 
and there are fifteen others on the walls and a dozen 
bastions, in most instances constructed with retired 
flankers. From a print in the British Museum. 

52. Portrait of the Great Condi^ 348 *" 

Ivouis II, Prince of Conde ; h. 1621, d. 1686. Collection 
Rischgitz. 

53. Portrait of Turenne 348 

Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, Marshal 
of France ; h. 1611, d. 1675. From a portrait by Charles 
lyebrun at Versailles. Collection Rischgitz. 

54. Portrait of CardinaIv Mazarin 348 

B. 1602, d. 1661. Engraved b}'^ Robert Nanteuil after Van 

der Meulen. Collection Rischgitz. ^ 

55. Portrait of Cardinai. de Retz 348 

Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz ; h. 1614, d. 1679. Collection 
Rischgitz. 

56. Portrait of Louis XIV 366 ^ 

B. 1638, d. 1715. From the portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud 
in the lyouvre. Photo Alinari. 

57. Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Coi^bert 374 '^ 

B. 1619, d. 1683. Engraved by Robert Nanteuil after Philippe 
de Champaigne. Collection Rischgitz. 



58. Portrait of the Marquis of Louvois 374 

Michel Le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois ; h. 1641, d. 169 1. 
Engraved by P. van Schuppen after C. le F^bure. Collec- 
tion Rischgitz. 

xxi 



y 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Fltt. 



59. Portrait ok Madame dk Maintenon 

Fran9oise d'Aubign^, Marquise de Maintenon ; b. 1635, d. 
1 7 19. From the painting by Nicolas Mignard at Ver- 
sailles. Collection Rischgitz. 

60. View of Paris in the Seventeenth Century 

A section of the Pont-Neuf is seen in the middle distance. 
This runs from the right bank of the Seine to the Cite, 
and the view is therefore down the river from the Pont 
au Change. Beyond the bridge, on the right bank, is 
the Louvre. From a contemporary engraving in the 
Bibliotheque Nationale. From Larousse, " Histoire de 
France." 

61. Portrait of Moliere 

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin ; b. 1622, d. 1673. Photo Mansell. 

62. Portrait of Racine 

Jean Racine ; b. 1639, d. 1699. Photo Mansell. 

63. Portrait of Bossuet 

Jacques-Benigne Bossuet ; b. 1627, d. 1704. From a painting 
by Hyacinthe Rigaud in the Louvre. Photo Alinari. 

64. Portrait of F^nelon 

Fran9ois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon ; 6. 165 1, f?. 171 5. 
Engraved by J. Thomson after a painting by Joseph 
Vivien in the Louvre. 

65. Portrait of Philippe of Orleans 

Philippe II of Orleans, Regent during the minority of Louis 
XV ; h. 1674, d. 1723. From an engraving by Ch6reau. 
From Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

66. Portrait OF John Law 

jB. 1671, d. 1729. From an engraving by Langlois. From 
Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

67. Portrait of Cardinal Dubois 

GuilTaume Dubois ; h. 1656, d. 1723. Prom an engraving by 
Roy. From Larousse, " Histoire de France." 

68. Portrait of Cardinal Alberoni 

Giulio Alberoni ; h. 1664, d. 1752. From an engraving in 
the Bibliotheque Nationale. From Larousse, " Histoire 
de France." 

69. Portrait of Louis XV 

B. 1 710, d. 1774. From the painting by C. van Loo at 
Versailles. Collection Rischgitz. 

xxii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIO. PAOE 

70. Portrait of Madame dk Pompadour 448 

Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour ; b. 1721, d. 1764. 
From the painting by Fr. Boucher in the South Ken- 
sington Museum. Collection Rischgitz. 

71. Portrait of Madame du Barry 448 ^ 

Marie- Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, Comtesse du Barry ; 
b. 1743, d. 1793. From the portrait by F. H. Drouais. 

Collection Rischgitz. 

72. Portrait of Louis XVI 456-- 

B. 1754, d. 1793. From the painting by Dum^nil at Versailles. 

X Photo. 

/3. Portrait of Marie- Antoinette 456-^ 

B. 1755, d. 1793. From an engraving by W. Greatbatch. 

74. Portrait of Voi^taire 480 '^ 

Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire ; b. 1694, d. 1778. From 
the portrait by P.-M. Alix. Collection Rischgitz. 

75. Portrait of Rousseau 480 "^ 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau ; b. 1712, d. 1778. From the bust by 
J. -A. Houdon in the I^ouvre. Photo A. Giraudon. 

76. The BASTII.I.E 488 ^ 

From an engraving on copper published in 1777. 

7. Portrait of Mirabeau 494 " 

Honore-Gabriel Riquetti, Count of Mirabeau ; b. 1749, d. 
1 79 1. From the pastel by Michel-Honor^ Bounieu. 

'8. Portrait op Robespierre 494^ 

i Maximilien-Marie- Isidore de Robespierre ; b. 1758, d. 1794. 

From a painting in the Chateau of Versailles. X Photo. 

9. Portrait of Danton 494 -^ 

Georges- J acques Danton ; b. 1759, d. 1794. From a painting 
in the Camavalet Museum. Photo L4vy Fits (S- Cie. 

0. Portrait of Marat 494 / 

Jean-Paul Marat ; b. 1743, d. 1793. From a painting in the 
Camavalet Museum. Photo Ldvy Fils & Cie. 

1. The Pai^ace of the Tuileries 540 ^ 

This drawing by J. Jacottet showsHhe palace as it existed in 
1850. It was built on the site of an ancient pleasure 
house called the Hotel des Tuileries from the tile-factories 

xxiii 



FIQ. 



PAGE 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

{tuileries) which existed in the neighbourhood. Fran- 
cois I bought this property as a present for his mother. 
The new palace was begun in 1564 for Catherine de 
M^dicis from the designs of Phihbert Delorme. Only 
the portion facing the garden was then erected, but it 
was continued and enlarged by successive architects till 
it formed a structure nearly a quarter of a mile in length, 
standing at right angles with the Seine. During the 
Revolution it became the seat of the execu.tive power, 
but it was again used as a royal residence under both 
the First and the Second Empire. It was burned by 
the Commune in 1871, and the remains, with the excep- 
tion of two wings connected with 'the I^ouvre, were 
removed in 1883. 

82. Portrait of Napoi^kon I 55^ 

Napoleon Bonaparte at St Helena. B. 1769, d. 1821. From 
the painting by James Sant, R.A. Copyright, Eyre (S- 
Spottiswoode, Ltd., I^ondon. 

83. Portrait of Napoi^eon III 5741 

Charles-Iyouis-Napol^on Bonaparte ; b. 1808, d. 1873. From 
the painting at Farnborough. Collection Rischgitz. 



XXIV 



BOOK I 

THE GAULS THE ROMANS 
AND THE FRANKS 

TO 987 

CHAPTER I 

GAUL BEFORE THE COMING OF 
THE FRANKS 

^ I "^HB story which is to be told in these pages begins some 
[ I centuries before any France existed either as a geo- 

X graphical entity or as a name, with the country which 
:he Romans knew as Gallia Transalpina, or Gaul beyond the 
yps. Stretching from the Mediterranean to the English 
[Channel and from the Bay of Biscay to the Rhine, this territory 
hcluded a good deal more than goes to the making of modern 
ranee. When history opens upon it it was peopled by three 
aces which Julius Caesar called the Aquitani, the Belgae, and 
he Celtae. The Aquitani occupied the region to the south- 
v^est between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. The Belgae 
pread north-east from the Seine and the Marne to the I^ower 
Ihine and the Ardennes. Between lay the land of the Celtae, 
mbracing the Atlantic seaboard, the great plains of Central 
•"ranee, and the lowlands of Switzerland. 

We now know that these races were not, as Caesar supposed, 
omogeneous, but that each was a conglomerate of many 
ribes. But the question of their derivation and composition, 
ke that of the aboriginal inhabitants whom they displaced, 
elongs rather to ethnology than to history, and need not 
etain us here. Caesar says that they differed from one 
nother ^* in language, institutions, and laws " ; but while it 
J evident that the Aquitani belonged to an entirely separate 

A I 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

stock, the Celtae and the Belgae appear to have had much 
in common ; and these closely connected members of the 
great Celtic family we may for present purposes consider as 
one people under the generic Roman name of Gauls. They 
are described by early writers as tall and fair, with clear 
skins and blue eyes; haughty of bearing, childishly impul- 
sive and fickle, fond of fighting, and of great strength and 
courage.^ 

In many migrations and colonizing movements from about 
the tenth pre-Christian century onward, these restless peoples 
had from time to time touched the fringes of the older civiliza-i 
tions. Successive hordes of them had in particular passed' 
over the Alps, attracted by the sunny skies and the wines and 
fruits of Italy, and so many had settled in the rich plain between 
Alps, Apennines, and Adriatic that that region had come to be 
called Gallia Cisalpina, or Hither Gaul. But they definitely 
enter European history some three hundred years before the?' 
birth of their destined conqueror, Julius Caesar, when 30,000 
warriors df the Celtic tribe of the Senones crossed the Apen-i 
nines into Central Btruria and laid siege to the important city 
of Clusium (now Chiusi) . The panic-stricken Clusians appealed 
to their old foe on the Tiber, and the Senate dispatched the 
three sons of Fabius Ambustus, the Pontifex Maximus, with 
peremptory orders to the invaders not to molest a city which 
was now the ally of Rome. " By what right do you attack 
the Etruscans ? " the envoys demanded of the Gaulish Brenhir, 
or chief; and the Brenhir (or, a& the Romans called him, 
Brennus, thus turning a descriptive title into a proper name) 
replied: *'We carry our right on our sword, and all thingsj 
are the property of the brave." ^ in a battle which followed 
the Fabii, forgetting their neutrality as envoys, joined in thei 
fighting, and one of them killed a Gaulish leader with his 5 
own hands. Brennus instantly sent an embassy to Rome to) 
demand the surrender of the man who had thus broken the: 

^ Caesar, Commentaries, Book II, chap, vi ; III, viii, xix ; VI, xiii. Diodorus^ 
Siculus, Book V, chap. ii. 

2 Livy, History, Book V, chap, xxxvi. 

2 



GAUL BEFORE THE FRANKS 

law of nations. The wiser counsels of the few were overborne 
by the clamour of the many, and the Roman people not only 
refused reparation, but even elected the offenders military 
tribunes for the ensuing year. The infuriated Gauls thereupon 
raised the siege of Clusium and marched straight for Rome, 
not even pausing to plunder the tempting villages on their 
way. The Romans, who had not yet begun to realize with 
what sort of men they had to deal, allowed the invaders to 
come within a dozen miles of their walls, and then sent out an 
army to meet them at the juncture of the Allia and the Tiber. 
The contest was short and decisive. The Roman lines broke 
before the fierce onset of the strange enemy, whose gigantic 
forms and wild war-cries filled them with panic fear, and only 
a few survived to carry to Rome the news of the disastrous 
defeat (390 B.C.). The city was sacked and fired, though the 
Capitol was saved, legend says, by the timely warning of the 
sacred geese of Juno ; and when the barbarians marched away 
they left behind them a tradition of their piower which long 
haunted the Roman imagination. 

Roman Expansion in Gaul 

For many years after this Rome continued t® encounter 
tribes of the Gauls, now as independent marauders, now as 
mercenaries in the armies of the Ktruscans and the Samnites ; 
and for a time she did little more than hold her own against 
them. But with the crushing defeat which she inflicted on 
the allies in the Third Samnite War the neck of the Gaulish 
power in Italy was broken (298-290 B.C.). This was followed 
by Roman expansion in Cisalpine Gaul. Then came the great 
struggle with Carthage, which interests us here in particular 
because, some of their free will and some under compulsion, 
many warriors of the tribes on the Upper Po fought under 
Hannibal's banner and gave him substantial help. But it 
must also be noted that the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) 
first definitely turned Roman attention to Gaul beyond the 
Alps. The city of Massilia (Marseille), which had been founded 
by Phocaean settlers some four hundred years before, had now 

3 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

grown to be the rival of Carthage in maritime power. It was 
natural, therefore, that it should side with Rome. The protec- 
tion which, in return, Rome extended to Massilia marks the 
beginning of Roman influence on Gallic soil. 

The subjugation of Cisalpine Gaul, which had been inter- 
rupted by the struggle with Hannibal, was completed in 
191 B.C., and Gallia Togata (or Gaul which had adopted the 
toga) was added to the fast-growing map of Rome. In the 
middle of the follovnng century the Massilians, harassed by 
surrounding tribes, turned again to the Romans for help. 
Such help was freely given, the Romans at the outset demanding 
nothing in repayment save the preservation of the overland 
route into Spain. But the rapid development of their terri- 
torial ambitions soon brought about a change in their policy. 
The interests of Massilia were made the excuse for a campaign 
of conquest which ended in the formation of another province — 
that of Gallia Bracata, so called because, unlike those of Gallia 
Togata, its inhabitants continued to wear the Gallic breeches. 
This territory (the alternative name of which, Gallia Provincia, 
survives in the modern Provence) ultimately extended from , 
the Rhone to the Pyrenees and as far inland as the Ce venues. 
The founding by the proconsul Caius Sextius in 123 B.C. of the i 
city which, with reference in part to its hot springs and in 
part to his own name, he called Aquae Sextiae (now Aix-en- 
Provence), was an event of importance, for this was the first 
Roman city in Gaul proper. A few years later Narbo Martins 
(Narbonne), originally a Phoenician settlement, became the 
first Gallic municipium, or Roman colony, and before long the 
successful rival of Massilia, whose glory from this time forth 
began to wane. Other municipia followed — among them 
Nimes, Beziers, Aries, and Avignon — each with its magistrates, 
its forum, its capitol, its circuses, and its temples, after the 
fashion of the mistress city on the Tiber. 

The Subjugation of Gaul 

Scarcely had the Romans firmly established themselves in 
Gaul when their very existence there was threatened by a 

4 



GAUL BEFORE THE FRANKS 

terrible danger from the north. Vast swarms of Cimbri from 
the borders of the Baltic and of Teutones from the far-off 
forests of Germany suddenly poured southward, and, crossing 
the Danube, for some years swept everything before them 
in Central Gaul, Provincia, and Spain. Having repeatedly 
defeated the Roman legions sent out to check them, they 
presently resolved upon the invasion of Italy. For this enter- 
prise they divided into two parts, the Teutones taking the 
route across the Maritime, the Cimbri that across the Central 
Alps. Rome itself trembled, and dispatched the ouly man 
who at that hour of desperate crisis seemed capable of saving 
the Republic — Caius Marius. For more than two years Marius 
was engaged in protracted operations against the Teutones, 
whom at length, however, he annihilated in a terrific battle 
in the hills near Aquae Sextiae (102 B.C.). In this two days' 
engagement it is computed that anywhere between 100,000 
and 200,000 (so do the reports vary) of the barbarians were 
slain. The next year Marius met the Cimbri in Northern Italy 
and defeated them in a battle still more bloody, the carnage 
extending even to the women, children, and dogs of the invading 
host. Rome was once more freed from the fear of external 
foes. But the civil dissensions of the capital now spread to 
Provincia and caused unrest and disruptions, while maladmini- 
stration inspired various movements of revolt. Then a fresh 
Germanic invasion began under a chief named Ariovistus, 
whose aid was implored by the Sequani against their powerful 
foes, the Aedui. The defeat of the Aedui gave Ariovistus a 
secure footing in Gaul, for Rome was at the moment too much 
preoccupied with troubles at home to be able to interfere. 
Other Germanic tribes were naturally encouraged by this 
success. Then the Celtic Helvetii, who had formerly joined 
the Cimbri in their depredations in Northern Italy, set out to 
invade Transalpine Gaul. This brought them into conflict 
with Julius Caesar, who had recently been appointed proconsul 
of the two Gauls (Cisalpine and Transalpine) and Illyria. 
Caesar vanquished them, and, turning at once upon Ariovistus, 
drove the Germans back across the Rhine. The Gauls were 

5 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

at first delighted to be thus delivered from their foes. But 
when they perceived that it was Caesar's intention to maintain 
an army of occupation in their territory some of the more 
independent among them took alarm. The Belgae, whom 
Caesar describes as the bravest of all and the least touched by 
the softening influences of civilization,^ formed a powerful 
confederacy and put an enormous army in the field. This gave 
Caesar the excuse for which he had been waiting. Discarding 
all pretence of friendship, he now openly undertook the conquest 
of Gaul. 

The accomplishment of this enterprise was the work of nearly 
six years (57-52 B.C.) and (including those in Britain) of eight 
campaigns, and the story of it is written with marvellous brevity 
and lucidity in the famous Commentaries. Caesar's first task 
was the destruction of the Belgic league. Then he proceeded 
to bring the Veneti and other coast tribes into submission ; 
after which, realizing that Roman power depended upon 
security from foes without as well as from malcontents within, 
he carried the war among the Germanic peoples on the farther 
borders of the Rhine. The invasion of Britain (55, 54 B.C.) 
was also an incident in the carrying out of his general frontier 
policy. The subjugation of Gaul now seemed assured, and 
the Roman Senate accorded the conqueror a public thanksgiving 
of twenty days. But the natural consequences of subjugation! 
soon began to appear in a well-marked tendency toward; 
unification among the Gallic tribes. Hitherto divided by; 
rivalries and contentions, they resolved to make common 1 
cause against the common oppressor. The first attempts at 
a general insurrection failed, mainly, it would seem, for want ; 
of a great leader. Such a leader now appeared in the person of 
a warrior of the Ar\^erni named Vercingetorix. 

Vercingetorix 

It is to be regretted that for most of our knowledge of: 
Vercingetorix we have to depend upon the records of one who,;, 

^ Commentaries, Book I, chap. i. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

great as he was as a soldier and a statesman, was a most 
ungenerous foe. Yet even in the dry and unsympathetic 
pages of the Commentaries the magnificent courage and personal 
power of the young Arvernian are still apparent. It was in 
the dead of winter that the signal for revolt was given. The 
news reached Caesar in Northern Italy, whither he had been I 
called by the critical state of things in Rome. Without an 
instant's delay he marched across the Cevennes, where in 
places the snow lay six feet deep. The struggle which followed 
demanded all his energies and skill, and' the severe reverse 
which he suffered at Gergovia, the capital of the Arverni, left 
him for the moment in a really desperate plight. He contrived, 
however, to reunite his scattered forces, and with the fall of 
Alesia, in which, after several reverses, Vercingetorix had shut 
himself up with 80,000 men, the organized insurrection came 
to an end (52 B.C.). The " great chief of a hundred kings " ^ 
then surrendered himself to his conqueror. Caesar's bald 
(narrative provides no details of the interview. ^ Other writers 
are more circumstantial, though unfortunately their accounts 
differ. Plutarch describes the great Gaulish chieftain riding 
into Caesar's camp in full military array, dismounting before 
Caesar's seat, and laying down his arms in absolute silence.^ 
According to Dion Cassius, on the contrary, he relied on Caesar's 
former friendship for pardon, and his demeanour was that of 
a humble supplicant.* This much at least we know, that 
the noble young hero was loaded with chains and carried to 
Rome, that there he languished for six 3^ears in prison, and 
that at the end of this time he was taken out to grace 
Caesar's triumph, after which his head fell beneath the exe- 
cutioner's axe.^ 



^ This is the meaning of the name Vercingetorix, though whether it is a | 
proper name or the title of an office is uncertain. 

* Commentaries, Book VI, chap, xxxix. 

* Life of Caesar. 

* Historia Romana, Lib. XL, cap. xl. 
^ The colossal statue of Vercingetorix which stands on the hill above the 

modern village of Alise-Sainte-Reine (near Dijon) was erected by Napoleon III 
in 1864. 

8 



GAUL BEFORE THE FRANKS 

After the decisive victory at Alesia Caesar had still to 
cope with various separate outbreaks of revolt in different 
parts of Gaul. But these he had little difficulty in quelling, 
and a year after the overthrow of Vercingetorix the Roman 
conquest of the country was complete. A second Roman 
province was then formed — Gallia Comata, or * I^ong-haired 
Gaul.' 

The Romanization of Gaul 

A striking change now came over Caesar's policy. He had 
conducted his campaigns with relentless cruelty. He now set 
himself to reconcile by tact and clemency the people whom he 
had crushed by force, and this new task he accomplished so 
rapidly and so thoroughly that when the Civil War broke out 
Gaul declared for its conqueror. Caesar's aim was to Romanize 
the country of which he had made himself master, and though 
undoubtedly this end was largely dictated by purely personal 
ambitions, still it must be admitted that in the means he devised 
to attain it he showed a genius for statesmanship equal to 
that which he had already shown for war. He interfered with 
existing conditions only so far as Roman security seemed to 
demand. He destroyed the old tribal confederations, for these 
would have been a standing menace to internal peace, but he 
respected the independence of the cities. Though he struck 
hard at the despotic power of Druidism and forbade human 
sacrifices, he did not otherwise disturb the religion of the people, 
to whom he also left their local laws, their traditional customs, 
and their native tongue. Taking advantage of their warlike 
disposition, he linked their interest with his own by recruiting 
his army from their best fighting men, forming a Gaulish legion 
which soon became famous under the name (derived from the 
figure on their helmets) of Alauda, or ' The lyark,' and to 
which he presently granted all the rights of Roman citizenship. 
He was singularly moderate in the financial burdens which he 
imposed, and drew out the sympathies of many noble and 
influential families by marks of personal favour in the form of 
bounties and honours. Caesar's own sagacious policy, which 

9 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

reveals an extraordinary insight into the character of the people 
with whom he had to deal, will go far to explain the rapid 
transformation of Gaul into a Roman territory. Yet it is 
only when the peculiarities of the Gallic genius are taken into 
account that the ease with which the conquered people assimi- 
lated the culture of their conquerors can be understood. '^ The 
Gauls," as Fustel de Coulanges has well said, " were intelligent 
enough to perceive that civilization is better than barbarism. 
It was civilization itself rather than Rome which subdued them. 
In their eyes, to be Roman was not to obey a foreign master. 
It was to share the manners, the studies, the pleasures of what 
was then known as the noblest and most cultivated portion 
of mankind." ^ 

This transformation was greatly accelerated by the policy 
of Augustus, which was specifically directed to the destruction of 
all the ancient foundations of Gaulish power. In his division 
of the country into four provinces he was careful to obliterate 
the natural lines of tribal demarcation, thus seriously impairing 
local patriotism. He built new cities expressly to damage the 
prestige of the Gaulish cities already existing, and these cities 
he made centres of Roman influence. He introduced Roman 
law. He substituted Roman religion for Druidism, which 
henceforth survived only among the lower classes in remoter ; 
districts like Armorica. These changes were not made, indeed, ' 
without resistance ; but they were made ; and by little and ; 
little, under the successors of Augustus, the arts and manners, 
the ways of life, the modes of thought, the culture and even 
the language of Imperial Rome were adopted by the wealthier 
classes throughout the south ; the lower classes and the peoples 
of the north meanwhile remaining, as was inevitable, far less 
aifected by the spread of the new influences. The abortive 
attempt of the Batavian Civilis (a.d. 69) to found an inde- . 
pendent Gaulish empire showed that some memories of the! 
past survived among the conquered people. But thenceforth 
the Romanizing processes went on with little interruption and 

^ Histoire des Institutions politiques de VAncienne France, " I^a Gaule ■ 
Romaine," p. 137. 
10 




2. Thk Arena, Arises 




3. The Maison Carre;e, Nimes 



10 



GAUL BEFORE THE FRANKS 

with so much effect that by the middle of the second century 
Gaul, with its splendid Roman roads, its agriculture and its 
commerce^ its handsome and bus}^ cities, and its educational 
activity, enjoyed greater prosperity and had reached a higher 
degree of culture than any other portion of the Empire. The 
arch at Orange, the Porta Nigra at Treves, the amphitheatre 
and Maison Carree at Nimes are renowned monuments of Roman 
Caul. Its schools became so famous that students crossed 
the Alps from Italy to attend them, while Gaulish teachers 
were to be found in Rome itself instructing the Italians not 
only in rhetoric (in which they soon showed astonishing skill), 
but even in the lyatin tongue. Gaulish genius had likewise 
alread3^ made, and continued to make, a mark in literature. 
Cornelius Nepos came from Cisalpine Gaul and "represents 
the fresh note of cosmopolitan biography," ^ as the Cisalpine 
Vergil represents the melancholy and romantic passion of 
the Celt. Vergil's friend Cornelius Callus, who '' brought 
into Roman poetry a new touch of Gallic vivacit}^ and senti- 
ment," 2 was a provincial, while at the real close of I^atin 
literature two writers of some importance, Ausonius and 
Namatianus, were born and educated, the one at Burdegala 
(Bordeaux), the other in the province of Narbonensis. The 
natural aptitude of the Gauls for orator}^ and poetry is a point 
to be emphasized. 

The Period of Decay 

The Golden Age of Roman Gaul, as of other parts of the 
Empire, was the period covered by the combined reigns of the 
two Antonines (138-180), and in Gaul, as elsewhere, decay 
set in with the accession of the infamous Commodus. For 
nearly a century thereafter Imperial history is a monotonous 
record of rebellions, murders, and general anarchy ; while the 
dummy figures set up and overturned by the caprice of the 
soldiers followed one another in rapid succession on the throne. 
The day of divine wrath foreseen by Tacitus was approaching. 

1 J. Wight Duff, A Literary History of Rome, p. 423. 

2 Mackail, Lafm Literature, p. 122. 

II 



i^ 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

With increasing luxury and outward splendour went the spread 
of moral corruption, and repeated risings of slaves, peasantry, 
and the offscourings of the cities bore witness to the hopeless 
misery of a population driven to desperation by famines, un- 
bearable loads of taxation, and military and judicial oppres- 
sion.^ Meanwhile, amid the universal distractions of the third 
century the weakening of every frontier left the Empire open 
to the barbarians beyond the borders, and swarms of Teutonic 
peoples — Goths, Vandals, Alamans, Franks, Suabians, Bur- 
gundians — under pressure, it would seem, of the Slavonic 
tribes behind them, overran Gaul, Spain, and Greece. Though 
again and again for short periods the Imperial power recovered 
strength enough to drive the invaders back, these barbarian 
inroads ultimately proved the chief solvent of the ancient 
Roman civilization. With one of these — the Frankish invasion 
— we shall have to deal in some detail presently. Regarding 
it here simply as an incident in the general Teutonic conquest 
of the West, we have only to note that with the fifth century 
comes the definite settlement of the Germanic peoples in Gaul — 
of the Burgundians in the Rhone valley, of the Visigoths, or 
Western Goths, in the south-west, of the Franks in the north. 
When in 451 the enormous hordes of the Huns under Attila 
(Btzel), '' the scourge of God," were defeated by Aetius, '' the 
last of the Romans," on the Catalaunian Plain, near what 
is now Chalons-sur-Marne, the victorious army which thus 
saved Europe from Tartar savagery was composed of Romans, 
Burgundians, Visigoths, and Franks. But the union of these 
elements was only for the moment, and after the battle they 
fell once mpre apart. The force of the Empire was no longer 
competent to check the confusion which followed. Even its 
nominal supremacy in Gaul was over, and when in 476 Romulus 
Augustus, contemptuously nicknamed Augustulus, gave up 
even his shadowy title the power to make history passed from 
the Gallo-Romans to the Franks. 

1 Such popular risings came to be known as baguadae or hagats — a word of 
uncertain derivation. Their resemblance to the English peasant risings of 
the Middle Ages has often been remarked. 

12 



GAUL BEFORE THE FRANKS 

The Progress of Christianity 

While our main concern at the moment is with the destructive 
forces which had been let loose upon the dying old world, we 
have still to take account of the rise of an agency which was 
soon to show itself potent for law, order, and social recon- 
struction. Of the beginnings of Christianity in Gaul it is not 
possible to speak with certainty, but its first centre was 
undoubtedly lyUgdunum (lyyon), and the date of its appearance 
there about i6o. It came, not from Rome, but from the Bast, 
the first Bishop of lyUgdunum being an Asiatic Greek named 
Pothinus, the second the celebrated Irenaeus of Smyrna. The 
progress of Christianity in Gaul was signalized by a long tale 
of martyrdoms and a good deal of internal disturbance conse- 
quent upon the struggle of orthodoxy with various forms of 
heresy. But it spread steadily over the different provinces of 
the country, and even before the end of the third century 
important Christian communities existed at Augusta Trevi- 
rorum (Treves), Arelate (Aries), Tolosa (Toulouse), Augustone- 
metum (Clermont), and lyUtetia (Paris), and smaller churches 
at many other places. The conversion of Constantine and 
the policy of Gratian ^ naturally gave it a fresh impetus, and 
it continued to gain in prestige and power. The Church thus 
emerged as the one principle of life and the sole element of 
stability amid the general welter of the collapsing pagan world, 
land at the time of the abdication of Augustulus it was already 
jfast assuming that role of supremacy in which it was to reveal 
j itself as the natural heir of the conservative forces of the Empire. 
I As w^e shall soon see, the further story of Christianity in Gaul 
iforms an important part of the history of the Franks. 

^ Constantine merely gave Christianity official recognition and a legal 
standing. It was Gratian who made it the State religion. 



13 



CHAPTER II 

THE FRANKS : THE MERWING OR 
MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY 

THE Gallo-Roman society of the fifth century bore all 
the marks of exhaustion and general debility. It no^ 
longer possessed the power to control its own fate in suchi 
a period of universal upheaval. That fatci was therefore leftt 
to the arbitrament of a fresher and stronger race. We havej 
seen that with the dissolution of the Empire Gaul had fallen i 
a XDrey to the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks. 
^The last-named of these were now to become the overruling^ 
force in its evolution, and ultimately to give the country its 
modern name. 

The Franks first appear in history as a confederation of] 
Germanic tribes who about th^ middle of the third century ofj 
our era had settled in the valley of the Rhine. Of their originj 
we know nothing for certain,^ and the etymology and primary'^ 
meaning of their name remain in doubt. ^ Their coalition was 
formed for general advantage only in their struggles with Rome, 
and was so loose that the associated clans kept their own laws, 
customs, and chiefs. Before long, however, they broke up| 
into two fairly defined groups — the Salian Franks, who inhabitedl 

^ This has been sought in the Sicambriau I^eague, which for a time gave 
Caesar considerable trouble (see Commentaries, Book IV, chap, xviii, xix) 
There is a good deal of indirect evidence in favour of this view. 

2 It has been variously derived from the Celtic franc, open, large, from the? 
Geiman frei, and from the Saxon fttanca, a dart ; but the more likely suggestion!! 
(supported by the authority of Grimm in his GescMchU der deutschen Sprache.l 
Part I, p. 512) is that it is the lyatinized form {francus) of a native dialecticall 
word signifying ferocious. It must have been of comparatively late intro-j- 
duction, since Tacitus, writing at the very end of the first century, knows- 
nothing of it. 

H 



THE MERWING DYNASTY 

the districts along the I/Ower Rhine and its affluents, and the 
Ripuarian Franks, who dwelt on both sides of the Middle Rhine, 
between the Meuse and the Moselle.^ The first irruption of 
the Franks into the Empire was in 253, when, breaking through 
its overstrained defences, they ravaged Gaul as far as the 
Pyrenees. Thereafter, though repeatedly repulsed, they soon 
gathered strength to renew their raids ; and their steady gain 
is attested by the fact that while they suffered a severe reverse 
at the hands of Julian the Apostate, the victor permitted the 
Salians to remain in the country of Toxandria, between the 
Meuse and the Scheldt. In 428, under the leadership of 
Hlodion, or Chlodion, the Salians defeated the Romans at 
Cambrai, and though in turn they were defeated by Aetius, 
they were not dislodged. Though their progress was still 
hampered by the partition of their power among a swarm of 
petty chiefs, by the middle of the fifth century they were 
virtually in possession of Northern Gaul ; the Ripuarians mean- 
while remaining concentrated around their capital, Colonia 
Agrippinensis, or Cologne. 

By this time Merowig,^ reputed son of Chlodion, was dead 
(457) and his son, Childeric, succeeded him as King of Tournay. 
Within a year Childeric's people, disgusted, according to Gregory 
of Tours, by his outrageous licentiousness, drove him into exile, 
and accepted the rule of the Roman military governor, Aegidius. 
After eight years, however, he was recalled. During his exile 
he had been the guest of a chief of the Thuringian Franks, and 
had become the paramour of his host's young wife, Basina. 
Shortly after his return he was surprised by Basina's arrival in 
iTournay ; and when he asked her why she had forsaken her 
husband to follow him, her reply, as recorded by Gregor^^ was 
as simple as it was bold. *' I know you are strong, brave, and 
clever," she said, " and that is why I have come to live with 

* The etymology of their names is doubtful. Saltan may come from Sal, 
a form of Issel or Ijssel ; Ripuarian (also written Riparian) is perhaps from 
ripa, bank, which the Romans sometimes used specifically for the bank of 
the Rhine. 

2 I follow the usual practice of historians in referring to Merowig as a real 
person. But there are grave doubts as to this. 

IS 






HISTORY OF FRANCE 

you. Understand, if I had known, anywhere beyond the seas, 
any man more capable than you, I should have sought his 
company." ^ Childeric made her his wife, and of this union 
the first great figure in Frankish history, Hlodowig, or Clovis, 
was born. 

Hlodowig, or Clovis 

Clovis was a youth of fifteen when his father died in 481. 
Already the Visigoths and the Burgundians were settled in 
compact kingdoms which together covered Southern Gaul. 
Over a territory stretching north-westward from that of the 
latter to the land of the Armorican federation Syagrius, 
son of Aegidius, held sway, really as an independent king of 
the Suessiones, though by his assumption of the title of Roman 
governor he kept up the pretence of Imperial authority. The 
Franks meanwhile were" scattered and disunited, and showed 
little tendency toward consolidation. Such were the condi- 
^tions in Gaul when Clovis began to reign, a mere petty prince, 
confronted by rivals having to all appearance an equal chance 
of success in that general struggle for existence which was now 
certain to ensue. 

Clovis, however, soon proved himself to be the man of 
destiny. Acting on the aggressive, he began by attacking 
Syagrius, the son of his father's old enemy Aegidius, and in 
a great battle near Augusta Suessionum (Soissons) destroyed 
the last vestiges of Roman power in Gaul (486). Syagrius 
fled for refuge to Alaric II, King of the Visigoths ; but Alaric 
delivered him up to the victor, by whom he was promptly 
put to death. Thus at twenty Clovis found himself master of 
the whole country between the Somme and the lyoire. The 
most important consequences of this triumph are, however, 
to be sought in the new relations between the Franks and the 
Clmrch to which it led. Guided by the instinct of self-preserva- 
tion, the Church naturally looked to the barbarians for the 
support which the Empire could no longer afford. To con-| 
quer the conquerors was now her immediate ambition, and in 

1 Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, Lib. II, cap. xii. 

16 



% 
/ 



THE MERWING DYNASTY 

realizing this she became the great medium of civilization 
between the old Roman and the new Teutonic worlds. Remi- 
gius, Bishop of Reims, made friendly advances to Clovis while 
Clovis w^as still a heathen, and it was probably on his advice 
that the young king took to wife Clothildis, or Clotilda, the 
Christian niece 43f the reigning Burgundian king. Before long 
Clovis himself became a Christian. According to the highly 
coloured narrative of the ecclesiastical historian upon whom 
we have in the main to depend for information, the immediate 
pause of his conversion was an experience of a startling char- 
acter. In 496 the Ripuarian Franks appealed to him for help 
igainst the encroachments of another Teutonic confederation, 
the Alamans, along the Rhine. The united Frankish forces 
ittacked the enemy somewhere in Alsace.^ At first the battle 
svent against them, and presently Clovis saw that their position 
(Vas critical. Then, moved to tears (' * commotus in lachrymis ' ') , 
le lifted up his eyes toward heaven, and, addressing the God 
3f Clotilda, vowed that if He would grant him the victory he 
rvould become a Christian. Even while he was yet speaking 
:he fortunes of war began to change, and in the end the Alamans 
ivere utterly routed. ^ For the moment, none the less, Clovis, 
"or fear of his soldiers, hesitated to fulfil his vow. But when he 
aid the case before them, they proclaimed their readiness to 
ibjure their old gods and to worship henceforth the God of 
lemigius. Whereupon, on Christmas Day of the same year, 
:he King was baptized at Reims, together with more than 
5000 of his followers, Remigius taking care to impress the 
magination of the barbarians by the magnificence of the 
ceremonial, 

[Conversion of the Franks to Christianity 

The personal significance of Clovis' conversion must not be 
[nisunderstood. Its motive was of the crudest. The alleged 
ncident on the battlefield must, of course, be set aside as a 

^ The commonly accepted statement that the battle was fought at Tolbiac 
[Zulpich), near Cologne, appears to be without foundation. 
* Gregory of Tours, op. cit., liih. II, cap. xxx. 

B 17 



HISTORY OF FRANCE f 

fabulous accretion of the kind that we expect in a myth-i 
making age. But it is at least indicative of the central fact1 
that Clovis changed his religion because he had come to believ€( 
that Christ was more powerful, and therefore better worthyj 
of his devotions, than the gods of his fathers. That Chriss 
tianity made any difference to his character his whole subset 
quent career emphatically disproves. This '' eldest son of thet 
Church " was crafty, mean, and bloodthirsty before he became< 
a Christian ; he was equally crafty, mean, and bloodthirstyj 
afterward. But under the impartial light of history his union 
with the Church is seen to have been fraught with the mosti 
momentous results. It meant the fusion of the tw^o elements! 
which together were to ensure the supremacy of the Franks : 
their own racial qualities, and the prestige and influence which! 
at the time, as the one firmly organized institution in a diss 
ordered society, the Church alone possessed. It did muchl 
(as he w^as probably astute enough to anticipate from thet 
outset) to establish his rule over that Christianized Gallo-t 
^Roman populace which formed the bulk of his subjects. 

It is also a point of capital importance that while most of 
the other Christianized barbarians had embraced the Ariani 
faith, officially condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 
Clovis, on the contrary, identified himself with the Catholia 
Church. This at once gave him an advantage which he wag; 
quick to seize. Orthodox Christianity looked to him ta 
champion her cause against heretic as well as heathen, and h& 
was thus able to secure the powerful support of the Church iov;i 
his lust of conquest by cloaking it under religious zeal. Aftei^i 
reducing the Burgundians to subjection he accordingly turned^J 
his attention to the Visigoths, nominally on the ground thalil 
he could not endure the thought that as Arians they shoul 
occupy any portion of the fair land of Gaul,^ but really, o: 
course, because he coveted their possessions. The strengt 
of his arms rather than the justice of his cause prevailed 
Alaric, the King, was slain ; the Visigoths were driven acros 
the Pyrenees into their Spanish domain ; and Clovis carried}] 
1 Cp. Gregory of Tours, op. cit., Iiib. II, cap. xxxvii. | 

18 



THE MERWING DYNASTY 

Prankish power and orthodox theology through Aquitania 

from the lyoire to the Garonne (507). Nor was his career of 

triumph yet ended. During his closing years he devoted 

himself to the congenial task of exterminating all his relatives 

who menaced his sovereignty. The most dangerous of these 

was Sigebert, King of the Ripuarians. At Clovis' instigation 

vSigebert was mtirdered by his own son Cloderic, and then 

Cloderic in turn by emissaries sent by Clovis for the purpose ; 

after which Clovis himself marched into Rhineland, categorically 

denied all responsibility for what had happened — '' for I could 

not shed the blood of my kinsfolk, since that is forbidden " ^ 

I — and proposed to take the Ripuarians under his protection. 

The suggestion was applauded, and he was raised, Frankish 

fashion, on the shields of the soldiers amid the enthusiasm 

of the multitude (509). Thus, says Gregory, *' God daily 

prostrated his enemies beneath his hands and increased his 

kingdom, because he walked before Him with an upright heart, 

and did those tilings wliich were pleasing in His eyes." ^ By 

force or guile he soon contrived to remove also the Kings of 

Tournay, Cambrai, and Mans ; his conduct in the case of the 

^ing of Cambrai being particularly characteristic of this 

man of upright heart ; for, having had his prisoner brought 

into his presence bound, he reproached him for disgracing 

.heir common family by appearing in that condition, and then 

clove his skull with an axe. After this, according to Gregory, 

' having killed many other kings who were his kinsmen," he 

;ummoned an assembly of his people, and with tears in his 

iyes bewailed the fact that he was now alone in the world, 

with no relative left to help him in his hour of need. But 

this he did, our annalist explains, not out of grief, but as a 

ruse, so that if perchance any relatives were left he might put 

them to death. 3 He died in Paris, w^hich he had made his 

Capital, in 511. 

Obviously it would not be worth while to consume space 
in analysing Clovis' character. The deeds of this " most 

* Gregory of Tours, op. cit., I^ib. II, cap. xl. 2 /^j^. 

3 Ibid., Ivib. II, cap. xlii. 

19 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Christian king," as Pope Anastasius called him, speak fo: 
themselves, and comment would be superfluous. It is, howr 
ever, to the point to remember that his atrocious ferocity, hia 
ruthless cruelty, his greed, perfidy, and mean cunning are all 
revealed to us in detail, not in the narrative of an enemy, but 
in the pages of a chronicler who writes as an ardent admireri 
It is enough for Gregory that his hero, of whom he has not 
a single good action to record, was a Christian and a defender 
of the orthodox faith. That one fact blots out all othei 
considerations. Far more than Clovis' own conduct sucll 
obliquity of moral judgment on the part of one w^ho stands foi 
Christian doctrine is of significance for those who would entei 
into the spirit of the age. A further revelation of that spirii 
is to be found in the legendary aftergrowths by which the* 
original story is in part overlaid. In his successful struggle 
for self-aggrandizement Clovis figures as the leader of God'j 
chosen people. Miracles were wrought in his behalf. Chrisiji 
answered his prayer on the battlefield and gave him victory/ 
A white hind of *' wonderful magnitude " guided him through 
*the turbulent waters of the Vienne. A pillar, of fire blazing} 
from the cathedral lighted his way b^^ night to Poitiers. The 
walls of the Visigothic city of Angouleme, emulating those o;j 
Jericho, fell down at his approach. 

Yet if Clovis' motives and methods were those of untemperecl 
savagery, his achievements were remarkable. During his reigri 
of thirty years he established the supremacy of the SalianI 
over all the other Franks, made himself master of Aquitania;i 
and reduced Burgundy to the condition of a vassal state. He' 
thus laid the foundations of the future France. 

Partition of the Kingdom of Clovis 

On his death his large kingdom was divided, according to thii 
Germanic custom, among his sons, Theodoric taking the kingdoiii 
of Metz (the later Austrasia) in the Rhine valley, Clodomer that oi) 
Orleans on the I^ower I^oire, Childebert that of Paris, stretching! 
from the Lower Seine to Armorica, and Clotaire that of Soissonsj^ 
between the Seine, the Oise, and the I^ower Rhine. Confusionji 
20 



THE MERWING DYNASTY 

3f course, ensued. With little sense of the need of a common 
understanding, the four brothers ruled independently, each 
seeking only the extension of his own power ; and if at times 
wo or more of them combined against a foreign foe, they were 
always equally ready, on any provocation or on none, to intrigue 
igainst or attack one another. Thus when Clodomer was 
?lain in battle with the Burgundians, Childebert and Clotaire 
nvaded his lands, killed his children (save one who was made 
% monk), and divided the territory between them. Ultimately, 
}n Childebert's death in 558, Clotaire became sole king of the 
Franks ; and when he died in 561, so steady had been the 
progress of the Franks that his kingdom was considerably 
arger than that w^hich his father had left behind him just 
ifty years before. This half-century of territorial expansion, 
lowever, brought little change in the character of the Franks, 
fhe conduct of Clotaire was infernal in its combined cruelty 
pd malice, while the strange quality of his religion is shown 
>y the childishly boastful exclamation wrung from him by 
he sufferings of his closing hours : " How powerful the King 
i)f Heaven must be if He can thus kill such great kings ! " ^ 

pHE Story of Fredegonda and Brunhilda 

On his death the kingdom was again broken up, and, as it 
happened, there were again four sons to share it ; and this 
resh dismemberment initiated a long period of chaos, inter- 
lecine feuds, treacheries, murders, reconsohdations, and re- 
livisions. To follow the ceaseless struggles for ascendancy 
imong successive relays of ambitious and ruthless men whose 
)assion for conquest was boundless and who stopped at nothing 
o gain their ends would be both wearisome and profitless. 
One extract from the tangled story will suffice to illustrate its 
eneral character. A certain Fredegonda, a woman of low 
^irth and the xnost vicious instincts, was for a time the mistress 
^f Chilperic, the weak King of Soissons. He put her away 
vhen he married Galswintha, a daughter of the King of the 
jpanish Goths, but she soon won back his affections and he 
1 Gregory of Tours, op. cit., Lib. IV, cap. xxi. 

21 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

restored her to the Court. This made Galswintha angry, and 
she threatened to return to her father. Then at the bidding; 
of Fredegonda Chilperic had her strangled in her bed, afterward i 
making Fredegonda his wife. This involved them both in ai 
bitter feud, with Galswintha's sister Brunhilda, a masterfull 
woman who was the wife of Chilperic's brother Sigebert, King ; 
of Metz. For upward of forty years wars, plots, counter-^ 
plots, and assassinations were the result of the rancorous hatred I 
of these two ambitious and unscrupulous women, who presently,! 
as regents, sought between them to govern the entire Frankish I 
race. A veritable I^ady Macbeth, Fredegonda did not scruple | 
to murder all who stood between her and the realization of I 
her plans, and though in the face of much evidence to thef 
contrary it has been stoutly maintained that Brunhilda was? 
on the whole more sinned against than sinning, the crimes of I 
which she too stands convicted were still many and grave.! 
Fredegonda died ("full of days" the chronicler says, and, 
/by a strange want of dramatic propriety hers would seem to i 
have been a natural death) before she had fully achieved thej 
great purpose of her manifold villainies, which was to place|| 
her son Clotaire on the throne of all the Franks. Brun- 
hilda outlived her rival sixteen years, during which she 
exhibited unabated energy and courage in the face of the 
powerful enemies whom she had raised up against her on; 
every side. In the end she fell into the hands of Clotaire,^, 
who in his treatment of her proved himself his mother's son.j 
Though now nearly eighty, she was cruelly tortured for threes! 
successive days for the delight of the King's army, after which i 
she was bound to an untamed horse and dashed to pieces. 

Beginnings of Differentiation between East 
AND West 

The most important fact in the history of this long period ofl 
chaos is the gradual segregation of the Frankish peoples intd 
two great groups, the Eastern Franks in their kingdom ol 
Austrasia, and the Western Franks in their kingdom of Neustria, 
In the east the Frankish population far outnumbered the Celtic, 
22 




< 

M 
> 

o 

W 



rf'r-H 



THE MERWING DYNASTY 

and in consequence Austrasia remained fundamentally Teutonic. 
In the west the Gallo-Roman population considerably out- 
numbered the Frankish, and there the I^atin language and the 
remains of I^aciU culture were destined to exercise a profound 
influence over the future fortunes of the country. Already, 
\ therefore, we see foreshadowed the later division between 
Germany and France. Before long, while the eastern kingdom 
was known as Oster Ric, the western came to be called Frank 
Ric, which in the speech of its Gallicized people assumed the 
form of Francia. 

The bitter jealousies of these two sections, of which the feuds 
of Brunhilda and Fredegonda were only a phase, filled the whole 
land for many years with the tumult of almost incessant civil 
war, the advantage lying now with one and now with the other 
side. The final triumph of the Austrasians is connected with 
a new factor in the history of Frankish civilization. This new 
factor was the growing power of the so-called Mayors of the 
Palace of the Merovingian kings. 

The Mayors of the Palace 

The M aire du Palais, or Major Domus, appears to have been 
originally only the chief servant of the royal household, with 
*! general charge of its management. By little and little, how- 
ever, the office assumed a political character ; the Mayor, 
ceasing to be a domestic, became the king's principal man of 
business, confidential adviser, and presently minister. This 
transformation of the office was at first due to the increasing 
power of the king, but later it was accelerated by the decay of 
that power. After Dagobert I, who was sole King of the 
Franks from 628 to 638, a rapid moral and physical rot attacked 
the Merovingian stock. Steeped in debaucheries, and with 
constitutions wrecked by excesses, king after king sank into 
an early grave, some, indeed, dying by violence, but others 
of premature old age ; while if one here and there lived to 
five-and-twenty, he had neither mental vigour nor strength 
of will nor bodily energy to make his royalty a real thing. 
These are the poor, feeble, shadowy rois faineants, the ' do- 

23 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

nothing kings/ of whose meaningless titles history does riot: 
trouble to take account. Meanwhile the power which these! 
degenerate children of degenerate fathers still retained ini 
name passed in fact into the hands of their tuteurs and guar-- 
dians the Mayors of the Palace, who gradually became the; 
actual masters of those whom they were supposed to serve..! 
In the pages of Einhard's biography of Charlemagne we have!: 
a vivid description of the pitiable state of decrepitude intoi 
which the Frankish kingship had fallen in the last years of the ! 
Merovingian dynasty. "There w^as nothing left the king to* 
do but to be content with his name of king, his flowing hair, 
and long beard ; to sit on his throne and play the ruler ; to 
give ear to the ambassadors that came from all quarters, and , 
to dismiss them, as if on his own responsibility, in words that 
were in fact suggested to him or even imposed upon him. He 
had nothing that he could call his own beyond this vain title 
of king, and the precarious support allowed by the Mayor of 
the Palace in his discretion, except a single country seat, that 
^brought him but a very small income. . . . The Mayor of the 
Palace took charge of the government and of everything that 
had to be planned or executed at home or abroad." ^ 

It is remarkable that in such an age the empty show of royalty 
should so long have survived its reality. More than a hundred 
years, however, elapsed between the accession of Dagobert's 
sons, the first of the 'Do-nothings,' and the actual extinction 
of the line with Childeric III ; while the failure of an attempt 
made by a certain Mayor named Grimwald, in 656, to usurp 
the Austrasian throne shows how tenaciously the Franks still 
clung to the Merovingian tradition. A quarter of a century 
later the struggle between Neustria and Austrasia was really 
a struggle between the two powerful Mayors Hbroin and 
Pippin of Heristal.^ In 680 Ebroin was victorious and gained 
the mastery for Neustria. But the success was only for the 
moment. In the following year he fell at the hand of a private 

1 Vita Caroli Magni, trans. Turner, chap. i. 

2 So called to distinguish him from his grandfather, who is known as Pippin 
of Ivanden. 

24 






/v. M 



W) 



O .-V 



25 w 



!? S 00 
O — W -"l- 
*^ Q . 




Jo 



o w a 

OH 

g H O 00 

o « 



25 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

assassin, and in 687 Pippin turned the scales by routing the 
Neustrian army at Testry, near Peronne. He thus became 
Mayor, and practical ruler, of all Frankland ; and though the 
unsubstantial royalty of the Merwings continued for another 
sixty-four years, it is at this point that the history of the new . 
dynasty of the Karlings may justly be said to begin. I 






26 



CHAPTER III 

THE KARLING OR CARLOVINGIAN 

DYNASTY 

PIPPIN OF HERISTAlv was the grandson on his mother's 
side of Pippin, of I^anden, otherwise Pippin the Old, 
and on his father's of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz. The 
original Pippin, who was Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia 
till his death in 639, and Arnulf were fast friends, and as 
joint counsellors to the King they laboured, according to an 
anonymous contemporary biography of the former, to rule 
the land in harmony with the will of God. Both were ulti- 
mately canonized. Arnulf's son Anseghis married Pippin's 
daughter Begga. This was the origin of the line which we know 
as the Karling, from its outstanding representative Karl the 
Great, or Charlemagne. The office of Mayor, still elective in 
Neustria, became in Austrasia a family right of these Karlings, 
who in their vigour, martial ability, and intellectual powers 
present a remarkable contrast to the decadent Merovingians 
whom they served. Histor}^ presenting the almost unparal- 
leled spectacle of five generations of really competent men, 
for once has to acknowledge a telling argument in favour of 
the hereditary theory of government. Unfortunately for the 
credit of that theory, the baton sinister is conspicuous in the 
Karling genealogical tree. 

The victory of the Austrasians over the Neustrians achieved 
by Pippin and completed by his successor may be regarded 
as one more wave in the Teutonic invasion of Gaul. It meant 
another triumph of a -strong, fresh race over a population in 
which signs of rapid social degeneration were everywhere 
apparent. 

27 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Though the battle of Testry had made him the real governor 
of all Frankland, Pippin made no attempt, as his uncle Crim- 
wald had done, to assume the forms of royalty. Surrounded 
by a jealous and turbulent aristocracy, who would be quick 
to resent usurpation, he wisely contented himself with the 
substance of power, and left the shadow of it to the four 
successive puppet-kings in whose names he ruled. Yet the 
transformation of his anomalous position is suggested by the 
fact that he presently came to be known not only as Mayor 
of the Palace, but also as Dux Francorum. His headquarters 
were in his own Austrasia, but he kept his hold upon both 
Neustria and Burgundy by delegating his authority to care- 
fully chosen subordinates. His policy throughout was directed 
to the centralization of government and to the consolidation 
of the Frankish dominions. When the Neustrians rose in 
revolt against him he sought to conciliate them by arranging 
a marriage between his son Drogo and the widow of their last 
l\iayor ; while in a long series of campaigns he subdued the 
Frisians, the Alamans, the Thuringians, and the Bavarians, 
all* of whom had taken advantage of the continued dissensions 
of their conquerors to repudiate the Frankish yoke. Here 
again he endeavoured to cement by peaceful alliance the success 
which he had gained by arms, for he married another son, 
Grimwald, to the daughter of Ratbod, King of Frisia, not- 
withstanding the fact that this Ratbod w^as still a heathen. 
As a result of this the way was opened up for the extension 
of Christian missionary enterprise among the Frisian people, 
and some years later the Northumbrian preacher Willibrord 
founded the -Bishopric of Utrecht. 

On his death in 714 Pippin left behind him an illegitimate son 
named Karl, or Charles,^ then twenty-five, and already of tried 

^ Though Karl is obviously the correct form, it would savour of pedantry 
to cling to it, and I therefore adopt the almost universally accepted Charles. 
In the same way I shall speak of this Karl's grandson, Karl the Great, under 
the familiar form of Charlemagne. This form has only popular usage to 
justify it, but after all, as Thomas Hodgkin said, " by its union of the Teutonic 
Karl with the I^atin Magnus it not inaptly symbolizes the blending of the 
German and Roman elements in the Frankish empire" {Charles the Great, 
Preface, p. vi). 

28 



THE KARLING DYNASTY 

valour, and three grandsons — the two sons of Drogo, who were 
then growmg into manhood, and a child of Grimwald, a boy 
of five. Pippin was guilty of the incredible folly of naming 
this boy as his successor. This last mad act almost wrecked 
the work of his life. His widow, Plectrudis, at once assumed 
the regency and threw Charles into prison. Revolt instantly 
followed, the old antagonism between Neustria and Austrasia 
blazed out anew, and the Prankish dominions were once more 
on the verge of anarchy. But Charles escaped, put himself at 
the head of the Austrasian army, and after a sharp struggle 
crushed Neustria and established himself as M^yor of the 
Palace and Duke of the Franks. 

The story of Charles' twenty-seven years' tenure of office 
is little more than the story of his wars, and the extraordinary 
vigour, courage, and patience which he exhibited in his innu- 
merable campaigns is well expressed in the name which he 
presently came to bear — the name of Martel, or ' the Hammer.' 
He had first to confirm his authority over the Neustrians, 
among whom discontent still smouldered. Then in turn he 
fought the Germanic tribes on his eastern borders, the Saxons, 
the Bavarians, and the Alamans, and reasserted Frankish 
supremacy over the restless peoples of Aquitaine, Burgundy, and 
Provence. But all these achievements sink into insignificance 
beside that crowning triumph by which, as a careful and 
temperate historian has phrased it, he decided " that not the 
Koran but the Gospel was to be the guide of the conscience of 
Europe." ^ Within less than a century after the Prophet's 
flight to Medina his fanatical successors had overrun Arabia, 
Syria, Persia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Armenia, 
portions of India, and Northern Africa as far as the Pillars of 
Hercules. With their thirst for conquest still unquenched, 
they then, in 711, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and in nine 
years more pushed their way through vSpain into Southern 
Gaul. Narbonne, Carcassonne, and Nimes fell into their 
hands ; they besieged Toulouse, almost destroyed Bordeaux, 
burned the great church of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers, and, 

^ Hodgkin, Charles the Great, p. 43. 

29 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

sweeping on in their unchecked career, reached Burgundy, where 
they sacked Autun. At this critical moment Charles IVI^rtel 
appeared on the scene as the champion of menaced Christendom. 
In October 732 the armies of the Crescent and the Cross came 
face to face near Poitiers. Seven days passed, each side waiting 
for the other to open hostilities. At length, early on a Saturday 
morning, the Arabs began to attack. All day long the turbaned 
warriors flung themselves upon the Franks ; but '' the northern 
nations stood immovable as a wall " ^ under their shock. 
The invaders' losses were enormous, and when the new day 
dawned it was found that they had fled under the cover of 
night. The Arabs were not yet, indeed, driven out of Gaul, 
for they maintained their footing in the south, and, of course, 
firmly established their power in Spain. But the great victory 
was none the less decisive in the sense that it made Moslem 
advance in Northern Europe impossible. 
^ Charles Martel died at fifty-two, his iron constitution prema- 
turely broken by a life of incessant exertion and fatigue. He 
stands out as a memorable figure against the background of his 
time. A man, it is clear, of tremendous force of personality, he 
was especially great as a soldier, using his sword, indeed, as a 
hammer to beat down all opposition to his will ; and yet, though 
his chief business was fighting, he was never, so far as the 
meagre chronicles enable us to judge, either cruel or treacherous. 
Unfortunately for his memory, however, he offended the 
clergy by conferring ecclesiastical dignities upon favourites of 
his own for services rendered or to be rendered to the Crown, 
and by compelling the Church, the fast-growing wealth of which 
was exempt- from public burdens, to place some of it at his 
disposal for the defence of the kingdom. It is for this reason 
that, notwithstanding the support he gave to missionary 
enterprise, the churches he founded and endowed, and his 
splendid victory at Poitiers, he was held up to obloquy by 
later ecclesiastical writers as a destroyer of monasteries and a 
despoiler of the things set apart for God. It is instructive to 
notice the difference, legend for legend, between the case of 

^ Isidori Pacensis Chronicon (in Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. xcvi, p. 1271). 
30 



THE KARLING DYNASTY 

Clovis and the case of Charles. The brutal and perfidious 
Merwing enjoyed the particular protection of heaven. Charles, 
it was alleged, died " a fearful death," and was afterward seen 
by a saint in a vision writhing in the torments of hell.^ 

Pippin the Short 

Charles' great aim was the same as that which had governed 
his father's policy, namely, the centralization of the Frankish 
power. On his death, though still only Mayor, he divided 
the kingdom between his two sons, the elder, Karloman, 
becoming Mayor in the east, the younger. Pippin, surnamed 
* the Short,' Mayor in the west. For nearly seven years the 
brothers co-operated successfully in campaigns against the 
Aquitanians, Alamans, Bavarians, Saxons, and Slavs. Then, 
for some personal reason about which it would now be idle 
to speculate, Karloman gave up his share in the government 
and turned monk, leaving Pippin Sole Mayor. This was in 
747. Secure in his position. Pippin soon determined to make 
himself King in name as well as in fact. With the consent 
of his nobles he sent an embassy to Zacharias, Bishop of Rome, 
desiring to know who should be King of the Franks — he who 
had the title but not the power, or he who, without the title, 
was able to make his will prevail. Zacharias replied that '' it 
seemed better and more expedient to him that he should be 
called and be King who had power in the kingdom rather than 
he who was falsely called King." This reply was of course 
just what was wanted, and it had the merit of being clearer 
than the answers of the oracles in general. Without delay 
Childeric III, the last of the Merwings, was shorn of his royal 
locks and immured in a monastery, and in the autumn of 751 
Pippin the Short became King of the Franks. Perhaps to 
gain the prestige which descent could not give to one who was 
after all a usurper, he had himself anointed King by Boniface, 
the Devonshire missionary who was now Archbishop of Mainz. 
This was an innovation among the Germanic peoples, and it 

1 The source of this fable was the Visio S. Eucherii, a forgery of Hincmar, 
Archbishop of Reims from 845 till his death in 882. 

31 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

symbolizes that increasing closeness of relationship between 
the Franks and the Church of which it is now necessary to 
speak. 

It will be remembered that when in 726 the Emperor I^eo 
the Isaurian forbade the worship of images he precipitated the 
great iconoclastic controversy which for a time shook the 
fabric of the whole Christian world. Pope Gregory II refused 
to obey the decree, and in this refusal he had the general 
support of the Western Church. The Imperial deputy in 
Italy, the Kxarch of Ravenna, did his utmost to compel the 
Pope, who ruled nominally as the subject of the Greek Emperor, 
to conform with his master's orders. To the Emperor's claim 
to be head of the Church Gregory replied that such headship 
belonged, not to the secular authority, but to the Bishop of 
Rome, thus for the first time asserting that distinction between 
Church and State which was later to become so important a 
conception in European politics. Meanwhile the Lombards, 
who had steadily been extending their power in Italy, took 
advantage of the confusion to attack the Exarch, whose city 
they captured, though they were able to hold it for a short 
time only. Under Gregory III the struggle between the 
Bishop at Rome and the Emperor at Constantinople passed 
into an even acuter phase, but in the end the Bishop triumphed. 
Scarcely had he done so, however, when he realized that he 
was threatened by a danger nearer at hand. The lyombards 
under their king I^iutprand were making efforts to subdue 
all Italy, and in 739 they marched to the very gates of Rome. 
Gregory now found himself compelled to seek for help abroad. 
With the repudiation of the Pope's allegiance to the Emperor 
Rome had become a sort of republic, with St Peter's Patrimony 
for domain and the Bishop as ruler. The steps which Gregory 
now took to safeguard his interests were, as it proved, the first 
steps toward the establishment of the later Pontificate. He 
turned to the Franks, both because they were the strongest race 
in Europe and because he was assured of their Christian sym- 
pathies. A personal friend of lyiutprand, Charles Martel inter- 
vened as peacemaker, and the trouble was for a time averted. 

32 1 



THE KARLING DYNASTY 



{a) TO CHARLEMAGNE 



Pippin of I^anden 

{d. 639) 

I 



Amulf, Bishop of Metz 
{d. 641) 



Grimwald 
{d. 656) 



Begga 



Anseghis 
{d. 685) 



Pippin of Heristal 
id. 714) 



Drogo 



Grimwald 



Char];es Martei. 
(689-741) 



KARIyOMAN 

(retired to a monastery 
747 ; d. 754) 



CHARIvEMAGNK 

(742-814) 



Pippin the 

Short 

{d. 768) 



1 
Kari^man 

(751-771) 



33 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

But ten years later the new I^ombard king, Aistulf, again 
overthrew the Exarchate, and again threatened Rome ; and 
again the Pope — ^now Stephen — appealed to the Franks, cross- 
ing the Alps in person to lay his case before their king. Pippin 
was manifestly under obligations to the Roman See. He 
accordingly marched into Italy, and, having defeated the 
I^ombards, bestowed certain lands and cities which he had 
wrested from them upon the Pope, though he himself was 
recognized as the Pope's overlord, with the title of Patricius. 
This was the beginning of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, 
and it marks a further stage in the development and consoli- 
dation of the connexion between the Papacy and the Franks. 
Of this connexion and its results there will be much more to 
say in the sequel. 

lyike his father and grandfather. Pippin laboured for the 
unification of the scattered dominions which years of conquest 
^had brought under Frankish rule ; and like them he risked the 
undoing of his life's work by the unwisdom of the plans which 
l}e made for its continuance ; for on his death-bed, still following 
the Germanic tradition, he appointed his two sons, Karloman 
and Karl, jointly his successors. In the division of the terri- 
tory, which was in due course ratified by a general assembly, 
the elder brother received, roughly speaking, the southern 
and the younger the northern part of the kingdom. The 
integrity which Charles Martel and Pippin himself had struggled 
to develop would obviously have been imperilled, in the best 
of circumstances, by such an arrangement. Matters were 
made worse by the bad blood which existed between the two 
brothers. For a time the situation was critical. Then the 
danger was removed by the death of Karloman in 771, by 
which Karl, whom we know as Charles the Great, or Charle- 
magne, was left undisputed King of all the Franks. 



34 



. CHAPTER IV 

CHARLEMAGNE 

771-814 

BORN in 742, Charlemagne was now twenty-nine, and as 
sole King he reigned nearly forty-three years. The fact 
that during this time he took part, in person or by 
deputy, in more than fifty campaigns is sufficient to give some 
measure of the conditions of the age and of his own activities. 
Of three of his wars — those with the Saxons, the lyombards, 
and the Saracens — it is now necessary to speak. 

His struggle with the Saxons lasted for more than thirty 
years (772-804), and is specially interesting because it was 
inspired by his militant Christianity. The Saxons were 
pagans, and Charlemagne was determined to convert them at 
the point of the sword. It is, I think, a singular detail that 
the only act of downright barbarity recorded of him was perpe- 
trated in this religious war ; and this was when, in 782, enraged 
by the stubbornness and treachery of his enemies, he caused 
4500 prisoners to be beheaded in one day at Verden, on the 
Aller. Again and again (" it would be hard," Kinhard declares, 
" to say how often " ^) the Saxons were reduced to nominal 
submission ; and again and again as soon as Charlemagne's 
back was turned insurrection broke out afresh. Ultimately 
their most famous leader, the heroic Widukind, surrendered, 
and consented to baptism ; an incident which naturally became 
the starting-point for pious legend when a little later nearly 
everything connected with Charlemagne was overlaid by a 
wild growth of romantic fable. This at last broke the neck 
of Saxon revolt, and though much fighting had still to be 
done, and though many of Widukind's countrymen fled to 

^ op. cU., chap. vii. 

35 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Scandinavia, the Saxon people in the mass were rapidlyj 
Christianized. 

Meanwhile Charlemagne's energies were needed beyond the! 
Alps. Trouble had again broken out between the I^ombards, 
under their king, Desiderius, and the Pope, and, following the 
policy of his predecessors, the Pope had called upon the Franks 
for help. The dynastic relations of Desiderius and Charlemagne 
were embittered by personal hostility : in particular, the wrath 
of Desiderius had been aroused when Charlemagne, who had 
married his daughter, repudiated her after a year of matrimony, 
while Charlemagne on his part was angry because Desiderius 
had espoused the cause of Karloman's widow, also a daughter 
of Desiderius, and her infant children. As one point in the 
quarrel between Desiderius and the Pope was the former's] 
demand that the latter, should consecrate Karloman's sons as 
their father's successors, Charlemagne had an immediate interest 
i in acceding to the Pope's request. Accordingly he invaded 
Italy, and, having defeated Desiderius, put an end to the 
kingdom of the I^ombards (773-774) by placing on his own 
head the famous Iron Crown (sanctified by a nail out of the 
Cross) whicli nearly two hundred years before Gregory I had 
bestowed on the then lyombard king. Again in 776 and 780 
Charlemagne had to return to Italy to complete his conquests, 
and thus he made good his position as Rex Langobardorum as 
well as Rex Francorum and Patricius Romanorum. But the 
significance of this achievement is to be sought less in his 
assumption of lyOmbard sovereignty than in the further conse- 
quences which it entailed both for the Papacy and for the 
secular pdwer. Charlemagne gained the Pope's favour by 
confirming the ' Donation of Pippin,' which he regarded as 
merely the restoration of certain possessions to their rightful 
owner. This greatly strengthened the Pope's hands in his 
struggle for freedom with the Eastern Bmperors. Since the 
time of the iconoclastic controversy the breach between the 
Popes and the Emperors had been steadily widening. It! 
happened that the Byzantine throne was at the moment 
vacant, for the Italians refused to recognize Irene, who hadj 

36 . I 




5. The Iron Crown 
6. The so-cai,i;ed Crown of CharIvKmagnk 



36 



^ 



CHARLEMAGNE 

usurped the place of her son, on the ground that Caesar's 
sceptre could not be wielded by a woman. This gave Pope 
Leo III the opportunity of making a bold attempt to revive 
the Empire in the West by transferring the crown from the 
decadent Greek line to that of the Franks, who were the 
ascendant race- in Europe, were orthodox Christians, and were, 
moreover, allies of the Papacy. This purpose was consum- 
mated when Charlemagne, still in the interests of the Pope, 
made his fourth expedition into Italy. The anti-papal party 
in Rome had driven I^eo III from the city on various charges 
of criminal misconduct. I^eo had appealed in person to the 
King, who, on satisfying himself of his innocence, restored 
him to his office. The Pope's gratitude was expressed in 
dramatic form. On Christmas Day, 800, as the King was 
kneeling in pra^^er during the solemnities in the great basilica 
of the Vatican, the Pope approached him from behind, and, 
placing a gold crown on his head, proclaimed him Emperor 
and Augustus amid the plaudits of the vast multitude which 
thronged the church. Einhard distinctly says that Charle- 
magne knew nothing of this in advance, and himself declared 
that he would not have set foot in the church that day *' if he 
could have foreseen the Pope's intention." ^ But if this is 
to be taken as a plain statement of fact, the fact is one for 
which no satisfactory explanation appears to be forthcoming. 
In one sense, of course, this papal donation of the Imperial 
title, resting as it did on perfectly baseless assumptions of 
right to give and to receive, was, as Charlemagne himself 
clearly perceived, nothing but an empty show. Yet, as a 
modern historian has said, it really laid the foundations of the 
whole political system of the Middle Ages, and of the great 
controversy between Pope and Emperor which this involved. ^ 

1 op. cit., chap, xxviii. 

2 lyavallee, Histoire des FranQais, t. i, pp. 179, 180. Three centuries later, 
when this great controversy was at its height, it was held by the papal 
party that Leo had crowned Charlemagne in virtue of the sacred power 
vested in him as successor of St Peter, while the Imperial party maintained 
that Charlemagne's right to the crown came directly to him on the strength 
of his conquests. Cp. Dante's De Monarchia, lyib. III. 

37 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Charlemagne's third great war was waged against the 
Saracens. Dissensions had arisen among the followers of 
the Prophet, and feuds between the Arabs and the Moors, 
who were divided by racial, political, and religious differences, 
raged furiously in Spain. In the spring of 777 Charlemagne 
was invited by the Arabian party to interpose, and, seeing the 
chance of strengthening his frontiers against the Musstdman, 
he invaded Spain with two armies early in the following year. 
Though he added the north-east corner of the peninsula to 
his empire under the title of the Spanish March, his expedition 
was otherwise futile. Its interest for us to-day is, indeed, 
rather legendary than historical. On his return across the 
Pyrenees the rear-guard of his army was surprised and com- 
pletely destro3'ed by a horde of "^ild mountaineers who fell 
upon it in the narrow pass of Roncesvalles. Among the slain 
was a certain Hroland, who is named as prefect of the Breton 
Marches. This is the onl}^ historical reference to that Roland 
or Orlando who was afterw^ard famous as the hero of the 
vast Charlemagne legend-cycle, and of that fine Chanson de 
'Roland in which, with little regard for fact, some unknown 
poet has made the massacre of Roncesvalles the theme of epic 
story. 

Of Charlemagne's many minor wars — and he was almost 
continually occupied in putting down disturbances on one or 
another of his frontiers — it is needless here to speak. It is 
enough to say that their total result was the extension in all 
directions of the boundaries of his rule. His vast empire 
finally spread from the Bbro to the Kibe, and included most of 
Italy, modem France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, 
and a large part of what is now Austria-Hungary. 

The Administration of Charlemagne 

It is, however, rather as an administrator than as a soldier 
that Charles deser^^es his title of ' the Great.' Relentless and 
often cruel in war, he was always generous to the vanquished ; 
as soon as his sword was sheathed his policy was that of 
conciHation ; and he revealed no little constructive genius 

38 




39 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

in his efforts to weld together the heterogeneous elements of 
his realm. The chief and central feature of his government 
was the General Assembly, which met twice a year — in spring 
and in autumn — and which was obviously a survival of the 
old Teutonic folk-moots described by Tacitus. Nominally, 
this was an assembly of all the freemen of the Empire ; actually, 
it was composed of the chief men only, ecclesiastic and lay. 
Its functions were those of a council ; it deliberated over the 
important questions of the hour, expressed opinions, and gave 
the King advice. But it had no executive or legislative 
powers. It was left to the King to initiate, to decide, and to 
act, and he was his own lawmaker. Though he thus made a 
show of governing by popular consent, he was practically an 
autocrat. 

Active as he was as a legislator, Charlemagne made little 
attempt to reduce to order and harmony the diverse and often 
Qonflicting laws of the different countries under his rule. To 
each he left its own institutions and customs, only requiring 
obedience to such general enactments as he deemed necessary 
for the peace and prosperity of the Empire at large ; and these 
enactments were often a curious medley of old Germanic, 
Roman, and Christian elements, the retention of the ancient 
Frankish method of trial by ordeal showing the tenacity with 
which he held to the traditions of his race. His most important 
work as an administrator is to be found in his Capitularies. 
Strictly speaking, these are not laws ; they are temporary 
edicts of various kinds, which in many cases may be described 
as supplementary to the existing laws. But they give us a 
vivid sense of Charlemagne's activity and earnest desire for 
the welfare of his people, while the paternal nature of his 
government is shown by the fact that no line is drawn in them 
between the legal and the ethical, the civil and the religious, 
the public and the domestic. We have sixty-five of these 
Capitularies attributed to Charlemagne, and the contents of 
their 1151 articles are so miscellaneous that no classification 
is possible. Almost everything pertaining to the administra- 
tion of the Empire finds a place in them, with much else that 

40 



CHARLEMAGNE 

can hardly be brought under that head. They assign definite 
penalties for definite crimes, and provide moral maxims for 
the guidance of Christian folk. They regulate the military 
service, and the public worship of the Church. Details of farm 
management, the adjustment of weights, measures, and prices, 
the suppression of beggary and theft, are alike considered in 
them. 

For the purposes of local government Charlemagne divided 
the Empire into districts, roughly adopting, where possible, 
the former limits of the Roman municipia ; over each district, 
or county, he placed a count, or Graf, who was responsible to 
him for its civil, judicial, and military welfare, while Markgrafen, 
or Counts of the Marches, were appointed to defend the frontiers. 
As experience soon proved that these distant officers were apt 
to abuse their powers, he developed the Merovingian system 
of missi dominici, or royal envoys, as a check upon them. 
These special commissioners, chosen by him ^* from among his 
best," ^ were sent out in pairs— one member being a cleric and 
the other a layman — at stated intervals and on regular circuits, 
and it was their duty to inquire into all local conditions, and 
to report directly to the Emperor concerning taxes, schools, 
churches, the army, the priesthood, the conduct of the Graf 
and the minor officials of the district, and, generally, on all 
other subjects which in their judgment ought to be brought 
to the Emperor's attention. This system, thoroughly organized, 
kept the Emperor in personal touch with even the remotest 
portions of his wide dominions. 

For a full understanding of Charlemagne's administration 
it is necessary always to remember that it was for him essen- 
tially Christian in character. His conception of government 
combined the theocratic with the imperial. He ruled as 
God's anointed, and it was therefore his duty not only to 
safeguard and develop all secular interests, but also, with 
divine aid, to spread the true faith, convert the heathen, defend 
the Church against heresies, and ensure by every possible means 

^ * " Kx optimatibus suis." See the Capitulary of 802, in which their 
functions are defined, .^t 

41 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the religious well-being of his realm. ^ He divided his realm 
into bishoprics, which soon became important centres of 
civilization, increasing in power as little by little cities grew 
up about them. He gave much space in his Capitularies to 
ecclesiastical and theological matters, and by repeated exhorta- 
tions and remonstrances showed his anxiety that the sanctity 
of priests and monks should be approved by their conduct, 
and that all in authority should labour for the good of those 
entrusted to their care. Yet while he greatly consolidated and 
strengthened the hierarchy, and gave it a larger place than it 
had previously occupied in the body politic, he regarded himself 
as supreme head of the Church no less than of the State. All 
ecclesiastical matters he kept under his control ; he called 
councils and presided over them ; he revised canons ; he 
superintended the appointment of bishops and archbishops. 
He carried his claim to authority, indeed, so far as to treat 
eyen the Pope as his subordinate, his view of the relations of 
Emperor and Pope being that while the Pope was the Patriarch 
of ^all the Western Churches, he was still a subject of the 
Emperor, whose rule over all the West was absolute. He 
therefore did not hesitate on occasion to reject the findings of 
a council, reprimand the successor of St Peter for meddling 
with things which did not concern him, take the initiative in 
controversy, and impose his will in respect of points of doctrine. 
Anxious for the eternal welfare of his people, Charlemagne 
was no less anxious for their temporal progress. He sought 
to promote agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. He 
regulated weights and measures. He revised the currency. 
He was also 'a munificent patron of the arts. But the most 
valuable part of his life-work is to be found in what he did i 
for education. Keenly alive to the dense ignorance which 
prevailed even among his clergy, he invited learned men from 
foreign countries to his Court to aid him in his efforts toward 

1 The following passage from a letter which he wrote to lyeo III is signi- 
ficant : " Nostrum, est secundum auxilium divinae pietatis, sanctam ubique 
Christi ecclesiam ab incursu paganorum et ab infidelium devastatione armis 
defendere, foris et intus catholicae fidei agnitione munire," r 

42 . I 



CHARLEMAGNE 

an intellectual revival. Among these was the famous English- 
man Alcuin, the greatest scholar of the age, with whose help 
he organized the Schola Palatina, or Palace School, in which 
all the members of the Court, from the monarch downward, 
were pupils. Many other schools were also established through- 
out his doniains ; especially in connexion with cathedrals, as 
at Reims and Orleans ; and with monasteries, as at St Gall, 
Reichenau, Fulda, Corvei, and Hirschau. One of these monas- 
tery schools — that of Saint-Martin of Tours, of which Alcuin 
himself was for many years abbot — ^became celebrated among 
the greatest centres of learning in Europe. In these institutions 
much attention was given to lyatin studies, and, besides the 
Vulgate, such classical authors as Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Sallust, 
Juvenal, and Seneca were read and interpreted. Music, too, 
was a subject in which Charlemagne was deeply interested, and 
two establishments expressly devoted to its cultivation were 
founded by him, one at Soissons, the other at Metz. Nor were 
his intellectual energies confined to the scholastic field. The 
revival of learning, which he stimulated by precept and example, 
led to the multiplication of ancient manuscripts by copyists 
and to the preservation of lyatin works which would otherwise 
have perished. A thorough German in character, ideas, policy, 
tastes, and language — an important fact which the familiar 
French form of his name tempts us to overlook — he was also 
concerned about his native tongue, had a grammar of it pre- 
pared for the use of the clergy, and made a collection of German 
songs and ballads which most unfortunately, on account of the 
heathen spirit of its contents, his pious son ordered to be 
destroyed. 

It is thus evident that Charlemagne's labours for education 
and culture are not the least among his many titles to fame. 
It must, indeed, be remembered that his success was onty 
local and temporary ; even during his lifetime the intellectual 
influences which he inspired scarcely spread beyond his Court, 
and they were soon lost amid the general confusion which 
followed his death. But credit is due to him none the less 
for what he tried to accomplish. 

43 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Judged by the standards not of his own time only but of 
all time, Charlemagne was so great a man that curiosity regard- 
ing personal details may in his case be forgiven. Fortunately 
Einhard has left us a full portrait of his master and friend. 
He was " large and strong " and " of lofty stature/' though 
not disproportionately tall ; his head was round, his eyes 
big and bright, his nose " a little long," his hair fair, his 
general expression " laughing and merry." His neck was, 
indeed, rather short and thick, and in middle life he tended to 
corpulency (" venterque projectior videretur ") ; but his firmness 
of gait and virile carriage still gave him dignity. Endowed with 
vigorous health, he enjoyed all manly exercises, especially 
hunting. He was simple in dress and manner, and temperate 
in eating and drinking, *' for he abominated drunkenness in 
anybody, much more in himself and those of his household." 
Quick in sympathy and of generous disposition, he was specially 
kind to the poor, while his gifts to the many churches in which 
he was interested were numerous and costly. Though his 
domestic relations were irregular^ — he appears to have had 
two wives and at least half a dozen concubines — he was much 
attached to his large family. " He was," says Einhard, " so 
careful of the training of his sons and daughters that he never 
took his meals without them when he was at home, and never 
made a journey without them ; his sons would ride at his side 
and his daughters would follow him, while a number of his 
bodyguard, detailed for their protection, brought up the rear." 
The same writer even adds that his curious unwillingness to 
marry any of his daughters was due to the fact that he " could 
not dispense with their society." A man of boundless energy, 
he was as alert and vigorous mentallj^ as he was physically, 
and his curiosity was unflagging. It was his custom, even 
while sitting at table, to listen to music or reading, and " the 
subjects of his readings " were either " the stories and deeds 
of olden time " or "St Augustine's books," of which '' he was 
fond " — especially the City of God, which undoubtedly exer- 
cised a considerable influence over his political ideas. Though, 
despite the attempts which he made late in life to master the 

44 



CHARLEMAGNE 

mysteries of the alphabet, he never himself learned to write,^ 
he had " the gift of ready and fluent speech," could speak 
lyatin as well as his native tongue, and had also a fair know- 
ledge of Greek. Rhetoric, dialectics, and astronomy were among 
his favourite studies. Such particulars enable us to realize 
that Charlemagne was not only a great soldier and ruler, but 
also, like our own Alfred, an enlightened and many-sided man. 
He died after a week's illness, on January 28, 814, having 
not quite completed his seventy-second year, and was buried 
in the basilica which he had himself built at Aachen. It was, 
of course, impossible that so notable a figure should pass out 
of the world without some patent sign of the interest of heaven. 
Accordingly we find that ** very many omens had portended 
his approaching end." Eclipses of sun and moon were frequent 
during the last three years of his life ; for sevexi days a black 
spot remained on the face of the sun ; buildings were struck 
by lightning and shattered by thunderbolts ; on one occasion 
a ball of fire rushed suddenly across the sky. But we are told 
(and the modesty and courage suggested are, in such a super- 
stitious age, not unworthy of remark) that " Charles despised, 
or aifected to despise, all these omens, as having no reference 
whatever to him." 2 

* Einhard, chap. xxv. * Ibid., chap, xxxii. 



45 



CHAPTER V 
THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS 

AS a provision for the welfare of his realm after his death, 
Charlemagne during his lifetime made his three sons 
kings : lyudwig, or I^ouis, of Aquitaine (including 
Gascony, Septimania, Provence, and portions of Burgundy) ; 
Pippin of Italy ; Charles of Neustria, Austrasia, and the 
remainder of the kingdom. As Pippin and Charles died before 
their father, these arrangements lapsed ; but Pippin's son, 
Bernhard, was confirmed in the Kingship of Italy, with results 
Which will become apparent later. The surviving son, I^ouis, 
was, however, crowned by Charlemagne himself in 813, in the 
basilica at Aachen, and the following year he succeeded in 
due course to his father's undivided imperial power. 

lyouis I, known as Louis le Pieux, or ' the Pious,' and I^ouis 
le Debonnaire, was a gentle, unselfish, and thoroughly well- 
meaning man, but, as he himself admitted, his virtues were 
better fitted for the cloister than for the throne. Weak in will, 
he was, like many other weak rulers, autocratic ; and this 
combination of qualities made him not only impotent for good, 
but also potent for evil. Efforts have been made to show 
that his policy was dictated by the best intentions. There is 
little profit in discussing these. Whatever the motives behind 
it, the consequences of that policy were disastrous. 

His drastic attempts at the very opening of his reign to 
correct the laxity of the Court, to begin with, were ill-advised ; 
reform was sadly needed, it is true, but save that he stirred 
up by it the animosity of those about him, his extreme puri- 
tanism had little practical effect. Swayed by considerations 
of piety, he feebly acquiesced in the encroachments of the 
Church upon lay interests and the secular power. He freed 

46 



THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS 

most of the monasteries of his realm, now increasing rapidly 
in wealth, from all public duties except that of praying for 
the Kmperor and the State. He permitted the monks to 
close their schools to laymen, thus frustrating his father's 
intentions of founding a system of public instruction, and 
making learning the prerogative of the clergy. He did not 
protest when, on I^eo Ill's death, the Roman people without 
consulting him elected a new Pope on their own responsibility, 
and he made a further serious concession to the fast extending 
papal claims by allowing the Pope to assume that the Imperial 
designation was invalid until sanctioned by the occupant of 
St Peter's chair. To conciliate his leudes, or great nobles, 
whom he frequently estranged, he distributed among them 
from time to time gifts of royal domains, and he was guilty 
of the amazing folly of granting them the titles of these in 
perpetuity. He thus impoverished himself by alienating the 
estates upon which, in the absence of regular taxation, the 
King depended, and undermined his supremacy by setting up 
centres of conflicting power. 

These were bad blunders. Even worse, at least from the 
point of view of immediate consequences, were those which 
he committed in connexion with the partitioning of his realm. 

In 817, when he had been scarcely three years on the throne, 
he resolved to delegate a portion of his authority to his three 
sons. To his eldest, lyothair, then aged nineteen, he granted 
the kingdom of Italy, at the same time making him his asso- 
ciate in the Empire ; while for the other two he created 
subordinate kingdoms — for Pippin, then aged eleven, the 
kingdom of Aquitaine ; for lyouis, who was eight years of 
age, that of Bavaria. These were the children of his first 
wife, Hermengard. On her death he allowed himself to be 
overruled by his nobles, and instead of entering a monastery, 
as he desired, he married again in accordance with their wishes. 
In 823 his second wife, Judith, bore him a son, and for this 
son, Charles, he conceived so passionate an affection that he 
presently annulled the constitution of 817 in order to carve 
out for him, while he was still a mere child, a new kingdom, 

47 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

which he called Allemannia, in the territory between the Jura, 
the Alps, the Rhone, and the Main. As might have been 
anticipated, these divisions were the cause of endless trouble. 
In the first place, lyouis' nephew, Bernhard, whose title to 
the throne of Italy had been ignored, rose in revolt. An 
interval of peace ensued upon his downfall and death. But 
it was a brief interval only. The donation to Charles in turn 
exasperated his half-brothers I^othair and Pippin, who took 
up arms against their father, and captured and deposed him. 
A counter-plot against lyothair soon restored him to the throne ; 
but a second insurrection broke out in 832, when lyothair and 
Pippin, again joining forces, had the further support of their 
brother, lyOuis of Bavaria, and of the Pope. The unfortunate 
Emperor was now deserted by most of those who professed 
to be his adherents, and lyothair assumed the Imperial title. 
This assumption was, however, repudiated by his brothers, 
and by their exertions the twice deposed monarch was for a 
third time placed on his throne. But even now I^ouis failed 
tQ make good his position. A man incapable of learning from 
experience, he still let himself drift, while his continued infatua- 
tion for his youngest son led him from mistake to mistake. 
Jealousies, intrigues, contentions, patched-up truces, fresh divi- 
sions, renewed misunderstandings and conflicts, thus made up 
the dismal record of lyOuis' remaining years. By his instability 
more even than by his downright misrule he had long since 
forfeited the respect of his subjects, and his two public con- 
fessions of his sins — one made in 822 of his own free will, and 
one in 833 under compulsion of lyothair — hopelessly degraded 
him in their eyes. Yet sentimental regard for the man ulti- 
mately triumphed over contempt for the ruler, and thus the 
fatuous and futile lyOuis passed into history as * the Pious 
King.' 

The Strassburg Oath and the Treaty of Verdun 

His death in 840 again let loose the hardly restrained forces 
of anarchy. lyothair's claim to his full rights as Kmperor was 
once more contested by I^ouis and Charles ; the son of Pippin, 

48 



C^l^inC-^^ kjir4ttr ojtxdif't^ |jt*^UA ll ;!--<? , «^j/^«^ ^/ 



7. FacsimiIvE of Part of Tim Strassburg Oaths 48 



THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS 

now dead — Pippin II of Aquitaine — meanwhile making common 
cause with I^othair under promises of Imperial favour. A 
great battle was fought in 841 at Fontanet, near Auxerre, and 
lyOthair and Pippin were defeated with immense slaughter. 
None the less_the war went on ; and the next spring Charles 
and I^ouis met near Strassburg to renew their alliance. This 
meeting is historically significant by reason of the solemn oath 
that was sworn there. The allied armies were of different 
speech, and the oath which their kings exchanged in their 
presence was therefore taken in the two tongues — ^the teudisca 
lingua and the romana. Both forms have been preserved, the 
latter being the oldest surviving monument of that romance 
idiom which was later to evolve into French.^ Before long 
after this lyothair became convinced that he was playing a 
losing game, and opened negotiations for peace with his 
brothers. Finally, in August 843 the famous Treaty of Verdun 
was signed, in accordance with the terms of which I^othair 
retained the Imperial crown and was granted a narrow strip 
of territory (* the Middle Kingdom,' lyotharingia, I^orraine) 
running from the Mediterranean to the North Sea along the 
valleys of the Rhone and the lyower Rhine, while, roughly 

1 During the Roman occupation of Gaul the original Celtic tongue dis- 
appeared almost entirely, vulgar I^atin conquering first the towns and finally 
the whole country. Thus a rapidly deteriorating form of I^atin was the 
language of all Gaul when the barbarian invasions began. The Teutons in 
turn gradually adopted this as they amalgamated with the Gallo-Roman 
people ; but though the actual infusion of Teutonic elements did not perhaps 
exceed some 500 words (see Brachet's Dictionnaire dtymologique de la Langue 
fran^aise, Introduction), the provincial tongue naturally underwent many 
changes in grammar, syntax, and pronunciation through their adoption of 
it. The following is the text of the formula above referred to : " Pro Deo 
amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, 
in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, et salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, 
et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, 
in o quid il me altresi fazet ; et ab lyudher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui, 
meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in danmo sit." (" For the love of God 
and for the common safety of the Christian people and of ourselves, from this 
day forward, as far as God gives me knowledge and power, I will support this 
my brother Charles and aid him in all things, as one ought justly to support 
one's brother, on condition that he does the same by me ; and with lyothair 
I will make no arrangement which, in my will, may be to the disadvantage 
of this my brother Charles.") 

D 49 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

speaking, all the territory lying east of this was assigned to 
lyouis and all the territory lying west of it to Charles. This 
treaty is of the utmost importance because it marks the 
beginning of an entirely new order of things. The three 
principal peoples of the Empire — the Italians, the Germans, 
and the Gallo-Franks — now separated for good. The dominions 
of lyOthair were, indeed, too incoherent in composition to 
hold together long, and with the later dismemberment of the 
Empire three important kingdoms arose out of them — ^the 
kingdoms of I^orraine, Burgundy, and Provence.^ But, on 
the other hand, on the east and west of this uncertain country, 
the future Germany and the future France now began to 
emerge as definite units. It is with the Treaty of Verdun, 
therefore, that their individual histories begin. Charles, known 
as Charles le Chauve, or ' the Bald,' stands out as, in fact, the 
first real French king. 

^ This, however, is his sole substantial title to distinction, for 
endless family squabbles are the only special feature of his 
long but inglorious reign. Over these we need not linger, 
nor will we attempt to follow in detail the ever-growing evils 
which marked the period of his son I^ouis II, called ' le Begue ' 
C the Stammerer ') and his grandsons, lyouis III and Karloman. 
On the latter' s death in 884 a posthumous son of the Stammerer, 
Charles, a child of five, stood in the natural line of succession ; 
but the nobles set him aside in favour of another Charles, the 
son of lyOuis of Bavaria. As this Charles, surnamed ' le Gros,' 
or ' the Fat,' was already Emperor and King of the Eastern 
Franks, the possessions of Charlemagne were for a time re- 
united (884-888). Chronic ill-health and general incapacity 
made him, however, an impossible ruler ; he was guilty of 
actions which his subjects could not forgive, and with his own 
consent he was presently deposed. Upon this the Empire 
again fell to pieces, the western kingdom passing into the 
hands of Odo, or Eudes, Count of Paris and Duke of France, 

^ Burgundy was at first divided into two kingdoms — Cisjuran Burgundy, 
or the kingdom of Aries, and Transjuran, or Upper Burgundy. They were 
united in 930. 

50 



THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS 

whom the northern nobles chose for their king simply because 
he had proved himself a strong man. But, under conditions 
which will be described presently, the western kingdom had 
itself by this time broken up into a number of petty states, 
and a movement was soon on foot among those of the south 
for the restoration of the Karlings in the person of I^ouis 
the Stammerer's son Charles. The premature death of Odo 
secured the success of their design, and while Odo was suc- 
ceeded in the dukedom by his son Robert, Charles, surnamed 
' the Simple,' ascended the throne (898). Follies and mis- 
fortunes make up the history of Charles' thirty-one years' 
reign, and for a long time before its close he had to face for- 
midable rivals, first in Robert of France, and then in Robert's 
son-in-law, Raoul, or Rudolf, Duke of Burgundy. Rudolf 
died childless in 936, and Charles the vSimple's son, I^ouis IV — 
lyouis d'Outremer, whose mother was our Athelstan's sister — 
was recalled from England, where he had been living, and 
made king. A man of some ability, he held his own against 
his turbulent vassal Hugues le Grand, the son of Robert of 
France, who perpetually challenged his power. His sudden 
death in a hunting accident in 954 placed the crown on the 
head of his son I/Othair, a boy of thirteen. In these circum- 
stances it is strange that Hugues refused to grasp the kingship, 
now well within his reach. Yet I^othair was allowed to reign 
till his death in 986. His son, I^ouis V — ' le Faineant,' or ' Do- 
nothing ' — died within a year of his accession, and with him 
the dynasty of the Karlings came to an end. The long-pending 
change was now effected. 

The Archbishop of Reims and the bishops of the whole 
country called the nobles together at Senlis, and the Arch- 
bishop made a speech in which he maintained that the crown 
was not hereditary, and that Duke Hugues, the son of Hugues 
le Grand, was the most fitting person to receive it. The last 
Karling, lyouis' uncle, Charles of lyorraine, was accordingly 
ignored, and Hugues Capet ^ was proclaimed king. The new 

^ His surname, Capet, is said to have been derived from the cappa, or 
hood, which he wore as lay abbot of Saint-Martin of Tours. 

51 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

dynasty which he thus founded in 987 was destined to rule 
over France for three hundred and forty-one years. 

The Settlement of the Norsemen 

This rapid survey of the long period of confusion between 
Charlemagne's death and the final collapse of his line, though 
necessarily incomplete will suffice for the purposes of our 
story. One outstanding fact, however, has still to be men- 
tioned — the settlement of the Northmen on Frankish soil. 

A chronicler of the ninth century tells us that Charlemagne 
himself had witnessed the first descent of Scandinavian corsairs 
upon the Mediterranean coast, and had been moved to tears 
thereby, foreseeing " with what evils they would overwhelm 
his successors and their people." ^ This may be fable. It 
was at any rate about this time that the piratical raids of 
the Northmen began, and only thirty years after Charlemagne's 
death a party of marauders even ascended the Seine and 
sacked Paris. Again and again they reappeared, their plun- 
dering forays becoming increasingly like regular invasions, and 
again and again the Karling kings attempted, and of course 
in vain, to stop their progress by buying them off. It was by 
his heroic stand against them when they once more laid siege 
to Paris in 885-6 that Count Odo specially proved his quality. 
At length in 911 Charles the Simple ceded to their principal 
leader, Hrolf, or Rollo, the whole valley of the Seine, on the 
condition that he should settle there peacefully, leave the 
rest of the country alone, and become a Christian. These 
terms were . accepted, and in accordance with the Treaty of 
Saint-Clair-sur-Kpte Rollo was baptized, taking the name of 
Robert, and the arrangement was cemented by his marriage 
with Charles' daughter. Because they were relatively few 
and were scattered over a large extent of country, the settlers 
soon lost their racial identity and amalgamated with the 
natives among whom they lived, adopting their manners, their 
language, and their religion. Thus the Northmen, under the 

^ Faits et Gestes de Charles U Grand, by a Monk of Saint-Loup, in Gnizot's 
Collection des M^moires relatifs 4 I'Histoire de France, t. iii, p. 251. 

52 



THE LAST OF THE KARLINGS 

slightly modified name of Normans, enter almost at once into 
the pages of French history. 

The consequences of the establishment and transformation 
of these Scandinavians in France must be carefully noted. 
By the time of the Treaty of Verdun, Celtic, Roman, and 
Frankish elements had already been combined toward the 
making of the complex French race. With the Treaty of 
Saint-Clair the last of the components of that race was intro- 
duced. This Northern factor, which we can still recognize 
in the fair hair and blue eyes of the Norman people, was 
destined to count for much in the subsequent course of French 
civilization. 

The Dissolution of Charlemagne's Empire 

lyct us now glance back over the course of events recorded 
in this chapter. In themselves they have little interest. They 
become extremely interesting when their broad significance 
is examined. 

The history of the later Carlovingian period is, it will be 
seen, the history of dissolution. How is this dissolution to 
be interpreted ? 

The purely personal aspect is naturally the first to arrest 
attention. Charlemagne was a strong and able man. A 
strong and able man was needed to wield his sceptre. His 
successors were on the whole weak-willed and incapable. 
Their very surnames — ' the Pious,' ' the Bald,' ' the Stam- 
merer,' ' the Simple,' ' the Fat ' — are significant. The dis- 
integration of his dominions, it is often said, followed, therefore, 
as a matter of course. Yet this explanation, though it has 
to be recognized, does not carry us far unless at the same time 
we remember the conditions of Charlemagne's imperial rule. 
He had built up his empire by military conquest ; it was held 
together by arbitrary power ; its unity was artificial ; even 
he had failed to reduce its heterogeneous components to 
anything like real homogeneity. Instability could therefore 
on general principles have been predicted of the vast and 
straggling aggregation of many races, differing in blood, tongue, 

53 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

interests, degrees of civilization, over which he held sway, 
and the gradual breaking up of that aggregation after the 
withdrawal of his individual power was thus simply the result 
of inherent tendencies now no longer held in check. Many 
modern writers, following Thierry,^ have gone farther than 
this, and have maintained that the growing sense of nationality 
was the primary disintegrating force, and that, like separating 
from unlike and uniting with like, new groups began sponta- 
neously to form out of the fragments of empire in accordance 
with the natural laws of racial affinities, language, and manners. 
Facts do not entirely justify this attractive theory, and it has 
against it the great weight of the authority both of Guizot ^ 
and Fustel de Coulanges.^ In general terms, indeed, it is 
safe to say that in the great upheaval of the ninth century 
community of interest followed grouping, and that the sense 
of nationality was the result rather than the cause of segrega- 
"t^ion. Though I still hold that much importance ma^^- be 
attached to the development of nationality among the centri- 
fugal movements of the time, we cannot, it is clear, regard it 
as an explanation of those movements. That explanation is 
to be sought mainly in the decentralizing policy of the Karling 
kings. 

The results of such policy are shown, to begin with, in that 
partitioning of the Empire by I^ouis le Debonnaire which, 
as we have seen, led first to struggle among his sons, and 
through this to the definite division of the Treaty of Verdun. 
They are shown even more conspicuously in the rise and 
establishment of what are known as the great fiefs. The 
dismemberment of the Empire was followed by that of the 
western kingdom. The practice adopted by the later Karlings 
of granting hereditary heneficia out of Crown lands to their 
loyal nobles entailed the rapid multiplication of what were 
in effect petty states, while at the same time the dukes, counts, 

^ Lettres sur I'Histoire de France, XI, XII. 
* Histoire de la Civilisation en France, chap. xxiv. 

' Histoire des Institutions politiques de I'Ancienne France, " IvCS Transforma- 
tions de la Royaut^," Wv. IV, chap. v. 

54 



THE KARLING DYNASTY 



(b) THE LATER KARLINGS 
Chari^emagnk 

(742-814) 



Chari^es 
King of 
France 
{d. 811) 



Pippin of Italy 
(776-810) 

1 

Bernbard 

{d. 817) 





Irmengard = lyOUiS I (le 
1 (77J 


D^bonnaire) = 
3-840) 

1 
mis Char] 


= Judith 


1 

Pippin 


Lothair I L< 


[,ES II 


King of 


Emperor of the the German (le Chauve) si'^^^uC^^ 


Aquitaine 


West (804 


?-876) (823-877) 


{d. 838) 


(796-855) 


1 




1 


Charles le Gros 




Pippin II 


(839-888) 




King of 




I^ouiS II (le B^gue) 


Aquitaine 




(846-879) 
1 




1 

I^OUIS III 


I 1 

KARI^OMAN ChARI^ES III 




(863 ?-882) 


{d. 884) (le Simple) 
(879-929) 




1 
Louis IV 






(d'Outremer) 






(921-954) 
1 




1 

LOTHAIR 


1 
Charles, 




(941-986) 
1 


Duke of 
Lorraine 




Louis V (le Faineant) 




(966-987) 







ss 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and viscounts who had originally been representatives of the 
king in Charlemagne's administrative districts were allowed I 
to turn their offices into family possessions, and so to increase 
their independence as to become sovereigns in everything 
but name.^ Hence local centres of government sprang up 
everywhere and local rulers were permitted to the destruction 
of the central power. By the end of the ninth century twenty- 
nine fiefs already existed in Frankland ; by the end of the 
tenth — ^the time of the final collapse of the Carlovingian 
dynasty — the number had increased to fifty-five. These, of 
course, differed vastly in size, importance, and the extent of 
the autonomy which they claimed. Many of them have 
little place in history. But some — ^like the counties of Flanders 
and Anjou and the duchies of France, Normandy, Brittany, 
and Burgundy in the north, and the county of Toulouse and 
the duchies of Gascony and Guyenne in the south — were in 
fact kingdoms within the kingdom, having their own sovereigns, 
(Customs, coinage, and laws. This decentralization ultimately 
brought about the alienation of the powers of the Crown into 
the hands of numerous petty rulers, and thus that great 
conflict began between the king and the feudal nobility which 
was to be so prominent a feature in the history of France for 
nearly five hundred years. 

^ By a capitulary of 877, often referred to as the Edict of Kiersy-sur- 
Oise, Charles le Chauve formally promulgated the hereditary principle in 
respect both of benefices and of royal offices. 



56 



BOOK II 

THE FEUDAL MONARCHY 

987-1328 

CHAPTER I 

THE FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS 

987-1109 

IT is necessary to consider carefully the conditions under 
which the first king of the new dynasty began his reign. 
Nominally he was ruler of a country which we are now 
entitled to call France, though the geographical area of that 
country was not precisely that of the France of to-day.^ 
Actually his sovereignty was confined wdthin the limits of his 
own estates, which, covering the area now occupied by the de- 
partments of Seine, Seine-et-Oise, Gise, and lyoiret, were smaller 
than those of many of his vassal nobles. Outside these his 
position was that of suzerain only, and while in theory he had 
the right to demand obedience from his vassals, he was in 
fact impotent to enforce it. In all parts of the country, as we 
have alread}^ seen, the great local chiefs themselves exercised 
powers within their territories equal to his within the duchy 
of France, administering justice according to their own will, 
making wars, concluding treaties, and otherwise acting as 
independent kings with little or no reference to his supposed 
final authority. He wds therefore scarcely more than a feudal 
lord among other feudal lords. As Duke of France, Count of 
Paris, Count of Orleans, and Abbot of three of the richest and 

* It should in particular be remembered that what was presently to be 
the province of Provence was in part incorporated with the kingdom of 
Aries and in part ruled by independent counts, It 4id GQt become French 
till 1481. 

57 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

most influential abbeys in the land — those of Saint-Martin of 
Tours, Saint-Denis, and Saint-Germain-des-Pres — he was at 
least the equal of the most powerful of them. But his real 
standing depended upon these possessions, not upon his king- 
ship. As King he enjoyed special prestige, it is true, but along 
with this- only a very shadowy title to the prerogatives of his 
regal office. 

These facts are of the utmost importance, for they form the 
point of departure of the story of the Capetian dynasty, upon 
which we now enter. The staple of that story will be the 
struggle of the King of France to consolidate his kingdom and 
establish his authority over all its parts. We shall find him 
at first losing ground in his conflict with the disintegrating 
forces of the feudal aristocracy. Then we shall come to the 
point at which his fortunes begin to turn, and thence onward 
we shall have to note the gradual unification of France as, 
through conquest, reversion, or intermarriage, the great fiefs 
fall into the power of the Crown, and, with this unifica- 
tiqn of the kingdom, the parallel evolution of the monarchy 
in the direction of the absolutism which was later to be 
attained. 

Though this consummation is as yet a long way off, there 
is one feature in the history of the centralizing process which 
becomes conspicuous at the very beginning of Hugues Capet's 
reign, and which may therefore be fittingly mentioned in this 
place. This is the rise of Paris into a position of paramount 
importance among the cities of the land. We first hear of 
Paris as a collection of mud huts on an island in the Seine, 
which Caesar called I^utetia, and described as the chief settle- 
ment of the Gallic tribe of the Parish. It soon acquired 
strategic value, and in course of time became a recognized 
home of Gallo-Roman culture. Thus in the fourth century 
we find it the favourite residence of Julian the Apostate. 
Clovis, as we have seen, chose it as his chief city, but the 
German sympathies of Charlemagne caused him to abandon 
it in favour of Aachen. Under the Carlovingians, therefore, its 
fortunes dwindled. But they were restored by the accession 

58 , . 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to the French throne of a Duke of France. Hugues Capet 
naturally made it his principal city, and it is with him that 
it definitely assumes the position it was never afterward to 
lose, of the capital of the realm. 

On his assumption of royalty Hugues Capet was sagacious 
enough to take precautions against further recourse to that 
elective principle to which he owed his own elevation by having 
his son at once consecrated as his associate. In this policy 
he was followed b}^ his successors till the crowning of Philippe- 
Auguste in 1 179. As by that time the hereditary theory had 
been firmly established, the practice was then allowed to lapse. 
It should further be noted that the Capetians broke at once 
with the old Frankish custom of dividing the coimtiy among 
the king's sons, substituting for this the rule of primogeniture. 
This was already a distinct step in the direction of unification. 
None the less, Hugues' accession was followed by immediate 
disturbances. He had the support of most of the northern 
nobles and of the Church, and the Pope's acknowledgment 
of his title strengthened his hands. But the great princes of 
the south were against him, and these, in league with the 
Counts of Flanders and Vermandois> backed Charles of I^orraine 
when he contested the election. The war which ensued lasted 
two and a half years, and ended only when Charles was taken 
prisoner and confined in the tower of Orleans, where he shortly 
afterward died. This we may regard as the last effort of the 
dying house of Charlemagne. After this the country enjoyed 
comparative peace for the remainder of Hugues' reign. Yet 
it was a troubled heritage which, dying at fifty, he passed 
on to his son: He had just contrived to hold his own against 
his turbulent vassals, but that was all. How little they 
respected his suzerainty is shown by the fact that when, in 
the course of a quarrel, he sent a messenger to the Count of 
Perigord with the question, " Who made you Count ? " the 
haughty chief retorted : " Who made you King ? " ^ 

1 Ad^mar de Chabannis, Chronicon Aquitanicum (in Migne, Patrologia 
Latina, t. cxli). 

60 . 



FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS 

Robert II (*le Pieux') 

The religious element had been prominent in Hugues Capet's 
character. It was even more pronounced in that of Robert II 
(970 ?-i03i), as his surname, * the Pious/ suggests. He gave 
much of his time to works of charity, often feeding a thousand 
poor persons a day ; his humility of spirit was such that on 
Holy Thursday he washed the feet of beggars and served them 
on his knees ; he was devoted to church music, and was himself 
a composer of hymns. It is a curious fact, therefore, that the 
chief feature of his reign was his long and obstinate quarrel 
with Rome. This quarrel originated in his marriage with his 
relative Bertha, daughter of the King of Aries and widow 
of the Count of Blois. To this union Pope Gregory V objected, 
nominally on the ground of consanguinity, really at the instiga- 
tion of the Emperor, who for political reasons desired to annul 
it. Though his devoutness and his placid temper alike prompted 
him to yield, Robert stood out against the command of Rome 
even when in 998 that command was reinforced by an edict 
of excommunication. The whole country was now thrown 
into a state of panic ; and popular feeling was the more intense 
because of the widespread belief that with the fatal year 1000, 
now fast approaching, the world was to come to an end. As 
a result, the King came to be regarded as a creature accursed ; 
people fled as he drew near ; the vessels which he touched 
in eating and drinking had to be purified by fire. Yet despite 
this general agitation it was not till 1006 that he consented 
to put away his wife ; upon which, of course, the papal ban 
w^as withdrawn. 

His second marriage, with Constance, daughter of the 
Count of Toulouse, was, however, equally unfortunate, though 
in a different way ; for Constance was an imperious and 
unscrupulous woman, who greatly troubled his life, and even 
stirred up his sons to rebellion against him. 

One detail connected with this marriage has a certain inde- 
pendent interest. On her arrival in Paris Constance was 
accompanied by some troubadours from Aquitaine. The 

61 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

impression which these southerners made on the people of the 
north was remarkable. Their style of dress and bearing, their 
luxurious habits, their close-shaved heads, were all severely 
criticized, and they were adjudged, in the words of a contem- 
porary chronicler, as vain, light-minded, and dissolute.^ The 
point of this lies in the evidence it affords of the fundamental 
antagonism which then existed between the north and the 
south. It was this antagonism, rather than any real affection 
for the Carlovingian dynasty, which had inspired the southern 
nobles to support Charles of Lorraine against Hugues Capet, 
the Duke of France. The course of time and the progress of 
events were now tending still further to separate the two 
peoples, and the evolution of their languages into markedly 
different dialects — ^the langue d'oc and the langue d'o'il— 
naturally helped the differentiation. Some of the consequences 
of this antagonism will become apparent presently. 

Save for matrimonial troubles, the reign of Robert was 
generally uneventful. A war of five years put him into 
possession of the duchy of Burgundy, but that important fief 
was soon lost to the Crown by his son. A cruel persecution 
of the Jews in loio and the burning of thirteen heretics at 
Orleans in 1022 were incidents not without significance in the 
light of future developments of religious fanaticism. Of another 
prophetic occurrence — an insurrection of Norman peasantry — 
we shall have occasion to speak in a later chapter. 

Henri I 

As his eldest son died before him and his second was an 
imbecile, Robert in 1031 was succeeded by his third son, 
Henri I. His mother, Constance, intrigued to have him set 
aside in favour of his younger brother Robert, and Henri 
had to purchase peace by the surrender of the duchy of 
Burgundy. This was, very obviously, a loss to the Crown. 
Henri was a brave man, and for thirty years kept up a ceaseless 
struggle with his great neighbouring vassals, the Counts of 

^ Rodulfus Glaber, Chron., T,\h. Ill, cap. ix (in Guizot, Collection des 
Memoires relatifs h I'Histoire de France, t. vi). 
62 



FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS 

Blois and the Dukes of Normandy ; but the general result 
of his reign was a marked shrinkage of the royal power. His 
encounter with Normandy was specially disastrous. Realizing 
how completely his estates were hemmed in by dangerous 
rivals, and how effectually Normandy blocked his outlet to 
the sea, he made a resolute effort to extricate himself from his 
entanglement by the practical vindication of his authority. 
But he was twice badly beaten- — at Mortemer in 1054, and at 
Varaville in 1058 — by Guillaume le Batard, whom we know 
in English annals as William the Conqueror. From these two 
blows he never recovered. 

Meanwhile the whole south seethed in turmoil through the 
desperate rivalry of Kudes, Count of Blois, and Foulques, 
Count of Anjou, called ' Nerra,' or ' the Black.' Even against 
the lurid background of his time the latter 's monstrous figure 
stands out in high relief. A man of unbridled passions, who 
knew no fear of God or man when the mood was upon him, 
he murdered his first wife, and either banished his second or 
drove her by ill-treatment to leave him, compelled his rebellious 
son Geoffrey to crave forgiveness with a horse's harness on his 
back, and on his various military expeditions took a savage 
delight in devastating the whole country with fire and sword. 
Yet if his boundless brutality and often grotesque wickedness 
were characteristic of his age, his feverish fits of piety were 
no less so. Remorse thrice impelled him to make a pilgrimage 
to the Holy I^and, and on the last occasion he caused himself 
to be bound naked to a hurdle and dragged through the streets 
of Jerusalem, while his servants scourged him with cords. 
It is related that when he fired the church of Saint-Florent- 
sur-Iyoire he promised the saint that he would make reparation 
by building another temple elsewhere in his honour, and that 
the fulfilment of this vow was the origin of the cathedral of 
Angers. 

Philippe I 

Henri's son Philippe ascended the throne in 1060, when he 
was only seven, and he was therefore still a mere boy when 

63 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

his vassal William, Duke of Normandy, became King of 
England. As he grew into manhood he was of course com- 
pelled to realize the immense additional power which thus 
accrued to the most dangerous of his great nobles ; but he 
was too indolent and easy-going to make any definite stand 
against the new conditions. Instead of open hostility, he had 
recourse to the shifty methods of intrigue ; in particular 
supporting the Bretons in their collision with the Normans, 
and Robert, William's son, when he rose against his father. 
The latter action, and a ribald jest which he made at William's 
expense, brought William himself, hot with anger, into the 
field, swearing vengeance ; but a fatal injury received while 
he was riding through the burning city of Mantes on his march 
to Paris removed this most formidable foe. Philippe pursued 
the same tortuous policy in respect to the Conqueror's two 
sons, Robert, now Duke of Normandy, and William Rufus, 
King of England, seeking to weaken them by sowing dissension 
between them. 

Indolence was undoubtedly the main cause of Philippe's 
refusal to join the First Crusade, which threw France into a 
fever of excitement during his reign. I defer to a later chapter 
the treatment of this important event ; but it is necessary 
here to lay stress on the King's apathy in regard to it, because 
this goes far to explain the extreme animosity of the eccle- 
siastical chroniclers toward him. That some at least of the 
numerous crimes with which they charge him are merely 
the inventions of their own prejudice now seems clear. But 
his torpor and indifference, in part cause and in part effect 
of his gluttonous habits, and in later life of his abnormal fatness, 
are beyond dispute. 

The Anarchy of Feudalism 

Such a man, it is evident, was wanting in all the qualities 
necessary for successful resistance to the fast-growing lawless- 
ness of the time. In his reign, indeed, the anarchy of feudalism 
reached its height. Central authority was now a fiction in 
France. Shut up in his narrow estates, and encompassed by 

64 







Pi 

w 

i-r 
o 



to 
o 

< 
a 

w 
w 



FIRST FOUR CAPETIAN KINGS 

ambitious and disorderly princelings, the monarch maintained 
his show of royalty only on condition that it should be nothing 
more than a show. Bven within his own domain the frowning 
fortresses of insubordinate chiefs — of the lord of Montlhery, 
for example, between Paris and iStampes, and of the Count 
of Corbeil, between Paris and Melun — openly defied his arms, 
and he could not ride beyond the gates of his capital without 
risk of being captured and held for ransom. The huge and 
massive castles which had now sprung up all over the land 
enabled the contumacious barons to do as they liked, and to 
laugh at the consequences. Many of these feudal chieftains 
were simply bandits, who terrorized the whole district around 
them, and enriched themselves by murder and pillage. If a 
measure of protection could still be found within the closely 
walled and heavily fortified cities, it was a measure only ; 
and outside the baronial highwayman, who lay in wait for 
passing traders and compelled them by imprisonment and 
torture to give up their wealth, made even the main roads 
so perilous that national commerce almost disappeared. At 
the same time the fields were left deserted, for even the peasant 
had no safety at his plough, and horrible miseries and fre- 
quent famines were the result. Brute force thus menaced with 
destruction what little survived of law and order, while the 
quarrels and jealousies of the greater nobles kept the whole 
realm in a state of perpetual upheaval. 

It is true that the Church, materialized and feudalized 
though it now was, had already realized that something must 
be done to check the lapse of society into barbarism, and to 
that end had made a determined attack upon the practice of 
private war among the nobles. In the south this first took 
the form of the edict known as the Peace of God ; in the name 
of God men were commanded as Christians to desist from 
fighting and violence under penalty of excommunication and 
future damnation. But the proclamation was but "idle 
thimder " ; the great nobles loved fighting and violence more 
than they dreaded the ban of the Church and the torments 
of hell. Then a compromise was introduced in the Truce of 

E 65 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

God (about 1041), according to the terms of which all warfare 
was to cease from Wednesday or Thursday evening (the edicts 
differ) till Monday morning, as well as during the principal 
ecclesiastical festivals, while in regard to churches, cemeteries, 
women, pilgrims, traders, and labourers the Truce was made 
perpetual. lyike nearly all the religious reforms of the period, 
this was a phase of the spiritual movement known as the Cluniac 
Revival. In the south the Truce was widely observed; in 
the north it was frequently disregarded. Yet on the whole 
we may take it, as we may also take the various associations 
for the maintenance of peace which had meantime grown up 
independently among the laity, as marking the beginning of 
a new and better order of things. 

To such a pass, then, feudalism had brought the realm of 
France. At this point it will therefore be well for us to pause 
in our story to consider in such detail as space will permit, 
dnd our story itself requires, the system which had wrought 
these deplorable effects. At the same time we shall find it 
convenient to say something about the closely associated 
institution of chivalry. 



66 



CHAPTER II 

FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY 

THE genesis of feudalism has long been the subject of 
violent controversy, and while the tendency among 
modern scholars is toward agreement on fundamentals, 
many important points are still in dispute. Into the question 
of origins, however, it is not necessary for us here to enter. 
We are concerned only with the broad aspects of feudalism 
as it existed in medieval France. 

The state of things which we find firmly established in the 
eleventh century arose from the combination of various causes. 
The weakness of the later Carlovingians had, as we have seen, 
permitted innumerable encroachments upon their preroga- 
tives. The grants of land which, under the I^atin name of 
heneficia, had been made by the king to his personal followers 
on condition of such and such services to be rendered in return 
had, to begin with, been grants for life only. Under the name 
of feuds or fiefs they gradually came to be regarded as perma- 
nent possessions. The officers appointed by the Crown as its 
representatives and agents in different parts of the country 
had, in like manner, by little and little so far forgotten the 
primary significance of their positions as to treat their authority, 
not as a delegated function, but as an inalienable right. The 
result was that what were originally royal commissions gradually 
assumed the character of territorial and hereditary holdings. 
Charles le Chauve's capitulary of Kiersy, in 877, specifically 
recognized the hereditary quality both of heneficia and of 
public offices, thus giving regal sanction to a revolution which 
was already in progress. In this way, by concessions and 
usurpations, the power of the king had been distributed among 
his subordinates or vassals. Of these the most prominent 

67 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

were the lords of the seven great feudal states, as they are 
called, the counties of Flanders, Vermandois, and Toulouse, 
and the duchies of Normandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, and 
Gascony.^ But the subdivision of the country by no means 
ended here, for it is recorded that when Hugues Capet became 
king there were no fewer than 150 territorial lords who claimed 
the sovereign rights of coining money, legislating, administering 
justice, making war, and concluding treaties of peace. Thus, 
as Guizot says, " the rights of property had become confused 
with those of sovereignty " ; the administrative hierarchy of 
Charlemagne had grown into an immense feudal hierarchy 
of petty rulers, and France had been turned into a congeries 
of practically independent states. 

Concurrently the development of feudalism was accelerated 
by the weakening of the central authority in yet another way. 
As in the anarchy which followed the dismemberment of 
Charlemagne's empire it became increasingly obvious that the 
king himself was unable to maintain general order, nothing was 
left for the small land proprietor, perpetually threatened by 
outrage and depredation, but to place himself directly under 
the protection of some strong noble. It was impossible for 
the simple freeman to stand alone ; safety then had to be 
purchased at any cost, even at the cost of some sacrifice of 
individual independence. This was expressly recognized in 
another capitulary of Charles le Chauve — that of Mersen, in 
^57* by which every freeman was permitted to choose a lord, 
whether the king or one of his vassals. Thus arose the prac- 
tice knovv^n as * commendation ' ; a freeman desiring to secure 
such protection v/as said to commend himself to a lord when 
he voluntarily yielded up liis land to him, receiving it back 
in the form of a feudal grant ; which meant that the ownership) 
of the land was now vested in the lord, that the tenant hence- 
forth was to enjoy the beneficiary use of it only, and that a 
relationship entailing various undertakings on both sides was 

^ The eighth great state, the duchy of France, belonged to the Capetians 
themselves and formed the nucleus of the royal domain, Hugues Capet being, 
as we remember, Duke of France on his accession to the throne. 

68 



FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY 

set up between the said tenant and the lord whose vassal he 
became. This practice, which was already well known in 
the time of Charlemagne, became more and more common 
under the later Karlings, and soon led to the virtual extinction 
of all allodial land-ownership — ^that is, of absolute ownership, 
or ownership in fee-simple — ^throughout the north of France. 
In the second half of the fourteenth century such absolute 
possession had become so rare that the proprietor of a freehold 
estate at Yvetot, in Normandy, st^ded himself king because 
he depended upon no one, and won so great a fame that long 
afterward his name passed into proverb and popular song. 

The Institution of Feudalism 

Disruptive as feudalism was, it none the less involved a 
chain of reciprocal duties and responsibilities. Its foundation 
was a particular way of holding land, then the sole basis of 
property and the one nexus of society. Theoretically, all the 
soil of the country belonged to the king, who granted it in 
large parcels to his great vassals, such grants carrying with 
them the privilege of immmiitas, or freedom from an^^ inter- 
ference on the king's part with the affairs of the estate of 
the vassal so long as the vassal faithfully fulfilled his part of 
the contract. In this way the right to exercise sovereign power 
within a given territory came to be recognized as an appur- 
tenance of the land of which such territory was composed. 
But this direct concession of land and prerogatives by king to 
personal vassal was only a first step in the feudal process. 
Subinfeudation was its logical consequence. The great vassals 
themselves granted estates out of their territories, and their 
vassals, in turn, estates out of theirs, this subinfeudation often 
continuing to the third or fourth degree, or even farther. This, 
taken together with the practice of commendation, accounts 
for the enormous mtdtiplication of minor fiefs. Each fresh 
grant habitually implied a certain amount of immunity, and 
in each case the tie established was between the vassal and 
the lord from whom he immediately held. The disastrous 
consequences of these conditions in still further undermining 

69 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the central power will be apparent. It is noteworthy that, 
made wise by experience, William the Conqueror took steps 
to prevent these evils in England by exacting an oath of fealty 
to himself from all holders of land, whether they held directly 
from him or from some intermediate lord. 

The essence of feudal tenure was the relationship between 
lord and vassal. The tenant held his land on terms of personal 
service and fidelity. He did homage to his lord for his estate, 
and by the act of homage, as the word etymologically implies 
(for it is derived from the I^atin homo), he became his lord's 
man. The full significance of the connexion was brought out 
in the solemnity of the formality with which it was initiated. 
The future vassal knelt, bare-headed and with sword ungirt, 
and, placing his hands in those of his lord, vowed thenceforth 
to be his man, and to serve him faithfully even with his life. 
Then followed the ceremony of investiture, the lord symbolizing 
the grant of beneficiary rights to the land for which homage 
had thus been done by giving his vassal a sword, flag, ring, 
clod of earth, or twig of a tree. The vassal's chief duty was 
military service ; and feudalism developed in large measure 
because the granting of fiefs on the terms in question was the 
only way in which the king, and after him the great vassals, 
and after them again the smaller vassals, could secure the 
armed assistance which they needed in an age of perpetual 
warfare. This military service, which was generally limited 
to. forty days in the year, did not, however, exhaust the vassal's 
engagements. His pledge included monetary aids as well, 
on three occasions in particular : when his lord was taken 
prisoner and 'had to be ransomed, when his lord's eldest son 
was made a knight, and when his lord's eldest daughter was 
married. Moreover, he had to purchase his lord's consent to 
the marriage of his own daughters and to forfeit considerable 
sums of money in the event of any one of them marrying 
without such consent ; and when he died * relief ' was 
exacted from his heir before he was admitted to liis inherit- 
ance. On his side the lord undertook in return to defend 
his vassal against his enemies, help him with counsel, secure 

70 



FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY 

justice for him, and after his death protect his widow and 
children. 

The general character of the relationship which constituted 
the essence of feudal tenure is now clear. In a sense it 
was entirely personal ; yet it should be observed that the 
obligations of the fief really appertained to the fief itself, 
and therefore on alienation, whether by grant or inheritance, 
passed as a matter of course to the person who came into 
possession of the land. 

Though it is a mistake to speak of feudalism as a system, it 
still bound up the whole of France in a network of extraordinary 
consistency. The complications to which it gave rise must, 
however, be noted. The majority of nobles were at once 
lords and vassals, holding of a superior lord, and having tenants 
holding of them in turn. It might even be that a lord became 
in respect of a certain fief the vassal of a man who in respect 
of another fief was already his own vassal. In other ways 
anomalies were very apparent. The Duke of Normandy, for 
example, though King of England, and as such much more 
powerful than the King of France, was still vassal of the King 
of France, and owed feudal service to him ; while the King of 
France himself, as holder of a particular fief which belonged 
to it, was vassal of the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Moreover, a 
man might hold lands of different lords who were at enmity, 
and thereupon find himself committed to divided allegiance. 
An illustration on a large scale of this kind of confusion is 
furnished by the case of the Count of Flanders, who held his 
western estates of the King of France, and the rest of the 
Bmperor of Germany. 

The reference just made to the Abbey of Saint-Denis will 
serve to remind us that the Church too had its place in this 
feudal network. Church lands, no less than lands in lay 
hands, carried with them all the rights and prerogatives of 
lordship, and were at the same time charged with all the 
obligations involved in the feudal relationship. The problem 
thus arose as to how these obligations were to be fulfilled, since 
even in that warlike age (though the higher ecclesiastics were 

71 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

often to be found actively engaged on the battlefield) the 
Church could hardly undertake to provide its quota of fighting 
men. This problem was solved by the practice of subinfeuda- 
tion. Monasteries and bishoprics granted their lands to nobles 
who, becoming their vassals, made themselves responsible for 
military service on the usual terms of feudal tenure. It should 
be added that the principle of immunitas was most broadly 
applied to the estates of bishops and religious houses. 

The feudal aristocracy was relatively very large, and it 
contained many grades, from the great dukes, marquises, 
counts, and viscounts at one end of the scale, through barons 
and simple knights, down to the mere landless squires in whom 
the series ended. But high and low, rich and poor, all these 
were regarded as nobles ; they bore arms ; they had nothing 
to do with the vulgar concerns of labour and trade ; and as 
even the humblest of them lived, not by his own toil but on 
the toil of others, he was ranked as a gentleman. Hence the 
chasm which separated the feudal aristocracy from the two 
other classes of contemporary society (the clerks or eccle- 
siastics being for the moment omitted) — the burgher class in 
the towns, and the peasants in the country. The burghers, or 
citizens, together with the artisans beneath them, represented 
industry and commerce ; and though the towns themselves 
formed an organic element in the feudal plexus, their position 
and wealth gave them a certain independence. The progress 
of the towns and the burghers, as we shall see later, was a 
most important factor in the decline of feudalism from the 
eleventh century onward. The peasantry, as the tillers of 
the soil, were, on the other hand, in the closest connexion with 
the territorial aristocracy, and it was upon them that the 
conditions of feudalism bore most heavily. They may be 
divided roughly into two classes — the free villeins, or rofuriers, 
and the serfs. 

The villeins paid for their land in money, in labour, and 
in kind, and though in theory they received an adequate return 
in the lord's protection (which was indeed a matter of supreme 
value in such a time of violence), in practice the lord was able 
72 



FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY 

to get by far the best of the bargain. Countless ways were 
open to him in which he could despoil his tenant. He 
administered justice on his estates, and his right to impose 
fines at discretion for all sorts of offences was a source of 
considerable income to him at the tenant's expense. Bvery 
kind of privilege had to be purchased by the tenant — ^the 
privilege of pasturing flocks, obtaining wood from forests, 
hunting, fording a stream, fishing in it. A tax was imposed 
on each head of stock owned by the tenant. The lord was 
further entitled to demand maintenance for himself and his 
retinue in time of peace, and for his army in time of war, 
when they passed through the tenant's lands. The tenant 
was also obliged to provide him with a certain amount of 
service in the management of his castle and estates. As the 
lord had a free hand, and was generally quite unscrupulous, 
in the exercise of these and other rights, monopolies, extortions, 
and despotism of a peculiarly exasperating character were the 
inevitable result. Theoretically, indeed, there was always the 
privilege of appeal to the king. But the king was difficult of 
access, and it was obviously unwise to incur the anger of the 
lord who was near at hand ; for which reasons the abstract 
right possessed but little practical value. 

Hard as was the lot of the roturier, that of the serf was even 
harder. He was attached to the soil, and could neither leave 
it of his own accord nor be driven from it by his master, though 
there were recognized ways in which he might acquire his 
freedom. His master's power over him was in effect unlimited, 
for it was expressly stated that in this matter the master was 
responsible to God alone. He was forced to give to his master 
so many da3^s' labour in each week upon the seigniorial demesne, 
and so heavy were the demands thus made that only the very 
narrowest margin was left for the cultivation of his own holding. 
While the master thus flourished upon his servile labour, he 
himself was generally able to wring only a miserable living 
from the soil to which he was bound. His master had a first 
right on the produce of his land, and could seize what he 
chose, paying for it when and as little as he saw fit. The custom 

73 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of banalities was also a grievous burden : the serf was com- 
pelled to grind his corn in his master's mill, to bake his bread 
in his master's oven, to press his grapes in his master's wine- 
press, and to pay well for conveniences which he was obliged to 
use. 

Such in broad outline were the outstanding features of feudal 
society. With the moral side of feudalism it is unnecessary 
to deal at length. It was at bottom the product of anarchy, 
and though it proved of immense service as a temporary 
measure against anarchy, it bore the evil marks of its origin. 
It throve upon war, and helped to keep the war spirit alive. 
Small and great, the nobles, as I have said, despised work and 
held all peaceful interests in contempt. Their sole occupation 
was fighting ; their huge, gloomy, powerful castles, which sprang 
up all over the country, were, fortresses rather than homes ; and 
their leisure was devoted entirely to the mimic battle of joust 
and tournament, and such sports as hunting and hawking. 

Chivalry 

Closely connected with feudalism, and in large measure an 
outgrowth from it, was the institution of chivalry, of which 
France was the cradle. This reached its maturity about the 
eleventh century, by which time the order of knighthood was 
so well established that all the sons of the nobility, even of 
those too poor to hold fiefs, passed into it as a matter of course, 
save those who were destined to swell the ranks of the other 
aristocracy — that of the Church. It had then also definitely 
assumed its specifically religious character. The influence of 
the Church had grafted the ideals of Christianity, as Christianity 
was then understood, upon the military forms and principles 
of feudalism. 

Discipline for knighthood was long and arduous. At the 
age of seven the boy was taken from the care of women and 
placed in the household of some wealthy noble, whom he 
served as damoiseau, or page, and by whom he was trained 
in sport and manly exercise, while the ladies of the family 
attended to his education in religion and etiquette. At 

74 t 




9. A Crusadkr Knight 



74 



FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY 

fourteen or fifteen he became an ecuyer, or squire, and as 
body-servant now accompanied his lord to battle, carrying 
his arms, caring for his horse, and on occasion even taking 
part in the fight. At twenty-one he was ready for the coveted 
honour of knighthood. Into this he was initiated by a solemn 
and impressive religious ceremony. First came the symbolic 
bath ; then fast, vigil, and confession ; then a sermon on the 
duties which he was about to undertake. He was then led 
to the altar by two knights who were to be his sponsors ; his 
sword was blessed by the priest ; and the lord by whom the 
dignity of knighthood was to be conferred struck him on the 
shoulder with his sword, as he knelt humbly before him, saying : 
" In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost *' 
(or alternatively, '' of God, of St Michael, and of St George ") '' I 
dub thee knight. " The neoph3rte then took the vow of chivalry, 
swearing to be loyal and brave, to maintain the right, to succour 
the distressed, and to defend God, the Church, and the ladies. 

Of the influences of chivalry for good and for evil it is difficult 
to speak in brief, in part because there is so much to be said 
on the one and the other side, and in part because the facts 
of the subject have been so much confused by the glozings of 
romance. That in practice the chivalrous ideal was rarely 
realized — that, as we shall soon have occasion to learn as 
we continue our story, the pure and disinterested impulses 
upon which the knight was supposed to act were habitually 
blended with, and often wholly submerged by, personal ambi- 
tions, rude desires, and the sordid passion for gain — that, as 
one writer has put it, '' deeds that would disgrace a thief, and 
acts of cruelty that would have disgusted a Hellenic tyrant or 
a Roman emperor, were common things with knights of the 
highest lineage " — all this is only what on general principles 
we should expect. It is more to the point, therefore, to insist 
that even at their best the ethics of chivalry were those of 
the age, and the virtues which it inculcated and fostered the 
natural results of militarism touched by religion. Hence its 
codes of morality and etiquette, while containing much that 
we are bound to regard as intrinsically and permanently 

75 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

admirable, were narrow, incomplete, and conspicuously one- 
sided. The worst feature of chivalry was its exclusiveness. 
Springing from militarism, it was inevitably aristocratic. Its 
finest ideals had little play beyond the hard-drawn boundaries 
of the knightly caste. Duty toward inferiors and dependents 
was not included in its scheme ; no dim conception of the 
brotherhood of man ever entered into its range of thought ; 
it did nothing to restrain, even if it did not positively encourage, 
injustice and brutality toward the lower orders. The courtes3^ 
practised by the knights among themselves had no counterpart 
in their dealings with the peasantry, whose homes were burned 
and whose fields were destroyed without compunction. Even 
chivalry's boasted devotion to womanhood in the abstract 
had for its concrete object only the woman of noble birth and 
gentle breeding. Thus there is justification for Dr Arnold's 
indignant outburst : " If I were called upon to name what 
spirit of evil predominant^ deser\^ed the name of Antichrist, 
I should name the Spirit of Chivalr^^" 

Yet obviously it would be inexcusable in an historian to leave 
unrecognized the other side of the picture. We have only to 
place the institution of chivalrj^ back in the setting of its 
age to perceive that along with its many imperfections there 
was much good in it too. On the whole it exercised a profoundly 
refining influence upon those portions of society which were 
directly affected by it. It helped greatly to raise the status 
of women, and though the fantastic sex- worship — " the super- 
stition all awry " — which it bred was itself pregnant of countless 
evils, this is an important fact to be set down to its credit. 
The ideal of character which it helped to create was also in 
many essential respects markedly superior to anything which 
had previously been accepted as a general standard of manhood. 
Attention must furthermore be directed to another aspect 
of its usefulness which is commonly overlooked. It mediated 
between the Church and the world. The logical tendency of 
ecclesiastical ethics was toward asceticism and the development 
of the monkish type. Chivalry did much to adsipt Christian 
idealism to the practical demands of the secular life. 
76 



CHAPTER III 
THE FIRST CRUSADE 

FRENCH historians have called attention to the fact that 
France was the cradle and the centre of the whole 
Crusading movement, and that a paramount part was 
played in it throughout by French leaders and French arms. 
None the less the Crusades properly belong to the general 
history of Europe rather than to the special history of France, 
and we must therefore deal only with such aspects of them 
here as have an immediate connexion with the matter of our 
own narrative. 

The series of religious wars, great and small, which inter- 
mittently for more than a hundred and fifty years Europe 
waged in the East must on a broad view be considered as an 
important new phase of the struggle which had already been 
going on for four centuries between Christianity and Islam, 
though the scene of activity was now changed. Their primary 
cause has, however, to be sought in the curious religious senti- 
ments of the Middle Ages. The superstitious veneration with 
which men had come to regard every sacred spot early led 
to those devotional expeditions which we know as pilgrimages, 
and which filled so large a place in the life of medieval society. 
For obvious reasons a pilgrimage to the Holy I,and was deemed 
in the highest possible degree meritorious, and strange notions 
grew up about its spiritual value. Prayers uttered amid the 
scenes made blessed by Christ's ministry and death, for instance, 
were held to possess a peculiar efficacy ; the waters of Jordan 
had miraculous properties ; and even the shirt worn by the 
pilgrim on entering Jerusalem, if afterward used as a winding- 
sheet, would ensure his instant admission to paradise. Under 
the influence of such crude ideas pilgrimages to Palestine had 

77 



/■ 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

begun almost as soon as Christianity had established itself 
in the West, and generation by generation they were under- 
taken by ever increasing numbers of men and women, who 
thus sought to expiate their sins and gain the special blessing 
of heaven. The fresh religious enthusiasm which followed the 
Cluniac Revival naturally gave an additional impulse to the 
pilgrimage spirit, and immense companies of persons — on one 
occasion 7000 are mentioned — often set out together for 
the Holy lyand. Thus far the sacred spots had been in 
friendly hands ; for the Saracen caliphs, though fierce, were 
generous ; they respected the religion of the Christians even 
to the extent of allowing them to build a hospital and a church 
at Jerusalem ; they even, for commercial reasons, encouraged 
the pilgrims. But a great change took place before the eleventh 
century was over. The S-eljuk Turks from the Caucasus cap- 
tured Jerusalem in 1076, and overran Asia Minor. Newly 
converted to Mohammedanism and still wholly ignorant of 
the real teachings of their religion, these barbarians were none 
th© less filled with proselytizing zeal, which they exhibited 
by the desecration of all the spots sacred to Christian feehng 
and the ill-treatment of the Christians themselves. Europe 
was soon shocked by the reports of returning travellers con- 
cerning these things. A strong martial spirit pervaded the 
Church at the time. The cry of Christian sufferers for protec- 
tion and vengeance thus fell upon ready ears. The idea of a 
great mihtary enterprise to rescue Christ's sepulchre from the 
infidel began to displace that of the peaceful journey under- 
taken for the soul's salvation. The pilgrim's staff became the 
Crusader's sword. 

The general inspiration of the Crusades was, therefore, 
provided by religion, as reHgion was then understood. The 
epidemic enthusiasm out of which they arose and by which 
they were fed cannot, however, be explained by reference to 
such large and disinterested motives only. The temper of 
the time and the state of society must also be taken into 
account. A spirit of unrest was abroad in Europe, especially 
among the Normans, in whom the old Viking blood was still 

78 



THE FIRST CRUSADE 

strong ; a craving for excitement and adventure marked all 
classes ; the love of fighting for its own sake was almost 
universal. Such being the mood of the age, men would have 
given an eager welcome to the proposal for a crusade had it 
been urged upon them merely on secular grounds. The fact 
that such an enterprise turned the satisfaction of their lust 
for violence and bloodshed into a religious duty and an act 
meritorious even unto salvation made its appeal irresistible. 
Even as religious enterprises, therefore, the Crusades, while 
to a certain extent legitimate in purpose and generous in 
principle, are still to be interpreted as in large measure the 
products of the turbulent passions, the gross superstitions, 
and the debasing moral theories of the Middle Ages. It must 
further be remembered, however, that thousands of those who 
took the vow did so without the slightest show of religion. 
This is admitted even by the old chroniclers, like William of 
Tyre. The Crusaders were, indeed, a motley crowd. Restless 
spirits joined the army of the Cross out of mere desire for 
change ; traders in the expectation of profit ; married men 
because they were tired of the responsibilities of wife and 
children ; debtors to evade their debts ; criminals to avoid 
punishment for their crimes ; serfs to escape from oppression 
which had become intolerable ; while most of the great nobles 
who started with large contingents under their leadership 
were prompted by pure ambition and the hope of conquest 
and personal aggrandizement. 

The First Crusade 

From these general considerations we must now pass to the 
history of the First Crusade, which alone is our immediate 
concern. 

The Byzantine rulers naturally took alarm when the Turks 
in their career of conquest established themselves at Nicaea, 
only seventy miles from Constantinople, and an urgent appeal 
was sent to Gregory VII, who then sat in St Peter's Chair. 
That astute and ambitious man instantly saw the opportunity 
of carrying a step farther toward realization his grandiose 

79 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

scheme for the universal empire of the Church, and at once 
began to devise means for an organized invasion of the Kast. 
For various reasons, however, he was obHged to abandon his 
plan, and it was reserved for Urban II, some ten years later, 
to carry it out. To him the Emperor Alexius Comnenus sent 
letters describing the immediate danger of Eastern Christendom 
and imploring his help. Urban called a council at Piacenza 
in 1095 to consider the situation, and as no definite results 
appear to have been reached, in the autumn of the same year 
he crossed the Alps and convened another council at Clermont- 
Ferrand, in the territory of the Count of Auvergne. It is here 
that the close connexion of France with the First Crusade 
becomes apparent ; as Voltaire put it, Italy had wept, but 
France armed. On November 24, at the end of eight days 
of deliberation, the Pope delivered an address in the open 
air to the vast crowds which gathered about the high scaffold 
frdm which he spoke. Three versions of this address exist,^ 
and though they differ much in details they agree in substance. 
The orator described in vivid terms the terrible condition of 
the Holy City, the atrocities perpetrated by the infidels, the 
trials of the pilgrims and the sufferings of their Christian 
brethren in the East ; dwelt upon the dangers which menaced 
Christendom, and made an impassioned appeal to all those 
who were able to bear arms to give up their private fighting 
and join in a concerted effort in the name and for the glory 
of Christ. His words were spark to gunpowder. There was 
in all that throng, a contemporary poem tells us, not a dry 
eye or a heart unstirred. That address was the real origin 
of the First Crusade. As the Pope finished, a great cry of 
" Dieu le volt ! " ('* God wills it ! ") went up from the frenzied 
multitude. Thousands pressed forward to take the vow of 
service and afterward to have its sign — ^the cross of red cloth — 
fastened across their breasts. Urban solemnly reaffirmed the 
Truce of God, put the families and property of the Crusaders 
under the protection of the Church, proclaimed salvation for 

* In the Historia of William of Tyre, in the Gesta of William of Malmesbury, 
and in a manuscript in the Vatican. 

80 



THE FIRST CRUSADE 

all who died upon the coming expedition, and commanded 
the clergy to preach the Crusade throughout France. 

An immense wave of enthusiasm thereupon swept over France 
and Southern Italy. The time had now come of which it 
had been written that men should take up the cross of Christ 
and be His disciples. In such a mood people looked for 
supernatural signs of God's approval, and supernatural signs 
were not, of course, wanting. Fire fell in showers of stars 
from heaven ; earthquakes suddenly ceased ; the earth gave 
promise of marvellous fertility. 

Among those who threw themselves with special ardour 
into the work of propagandism was the famous Peter of Amiens, 
better known as Peter the Hermit. The popular story runs 
that Peter had himself been an eye-witness of the sufferings of 
the faithful in the Holy I^and, that, moved to indignation, he 
had hurried to Rome and had laid their hard case before the 
Pope, and that it was with the Pope's permission and approval 
that he set forth to fire the masses of the people with zeal for 
the sacred cause. All this is as legendary as the more obviously 
fabulous story that his inspiration had come directly from 
Christ, who had appeared to him in a vision in the church at 
Jerusalem. It was Urban himself and not Peter who was 
the originator of the First Crusade. Peter's alleged pilgrimage 
to the Holy I^and is apparently an invention of the chroniclers. 
There is no evidence that he ever spoke with the Pope, and 
it is certain that his preaching began, not before, but after 
and as a result of the Council of Clermont. Yet even when 
accretions of myth have been brushed aside Peter's part in 
the early drama of the First Crusade remains conspicuous. 
During the winter of 1095-96 he traversed Auvergne, Berry, 
the royal domains, and I^orraine, and everywhere he went 
he evoked the wildest enthusiasm. Small, thin, dark-skinned, 
with long, tangled hair and beard, his costume a hermit's 
cloak of coarse stuff girt with a cord, his hands and feet bare, 
he presented a strange figure as he rode on his mule from 
town to town and from village to village, haranguing the 
populace from pulpit or roadside or market-place, and by 

F 81 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

his inflammatory eloquence stirring their passions to fever- 
heat. "Something divine," says a chronicler, "was felt in 
his slightest movements, and people tore the hairs from his 
mule to preserve them as relics." ^ When he reached Cologne 
he had a following of 15,000 persons. At Cologne his numbers 
doubled. This enormous army, if army it can be called, was 
recruited almost entirely from the lowest classes, and was 
largely composed of peasants, beggars, and adventurers, while 
women and children further swelled its ranks. Unprovisioned, 
poorly equipped, insufficiently armed, wholly undisciplined, 
and hopelessly ignorant of the dangers and hardships of the 
journey before them, these straggling multitudes, led by Peter 
himself, a certain knight from Burgundy named Gautier sans 
Avoir, or Walter the Penniless, and other men of less note, 
made their way through Germany and Hungary, and thence 
along the Danube toward Constantinople, robbing, plundering, 
persecuting the Jews, and in general by their disorderly conduct 
arousing such animosity that many were slain by the inhabi- 
tants of the districts through which they passed. Those who 
reached Constantinople were received by the Emperor, who 
none the less deemed it wise to send them forward as quickly 
as possible into Asia Minor. There the Turks soon annihilated 
the poor remnant which had managed to survive hunger, 
thirst, exposure, and the ravages of disease. Thus ends the 
grotesquely tragic story of the Peasants' Crusade. Peter 
himself, though guilty of cowardice in action, was prominent 
among the Crusaders till the fall of Jerusalem, some time 
after which he, returned to Europe, dying in 11 15 in a monastery 
of his own foundation at Huy, in the lyOw Countries. 

While Peter's rabble was marching through crime and 
misery to destruction, preparations for the real Crusade were 
advancing slowly. Urban, himself a Frenchman, appointed 
Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, his legate and representative ; while 
among the French nobles who were specially active in raising 
forces were the King's brother, Hugues, Count of Vermandois, 

^ Guibert de Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos (in Recueil des Historians des 
Croisades : Historiens occidentaux, t. iv). 
82 ^ 



THE FIRST CRUSADE 

Robert, Count of Flanders, the hot-headed Robert Courte- 
Heuse, Duke of Normandy, who mortgaged all his lands to 
provide the sinews of war, the vain and untrustworthy iStienne, 
Count of Blois, and the crafty but daring Raymond of Toulouse, 
the leader of the south. 

When at length the immense army, or collection of armies, 
was ready to start, necessity obliged the different chiefs to take 
different routes to Constantinople, where a general meeting 
was planned. Six divisions accordingly set out at considerable 
intervals of time, one following the peasants through Germany 
and Hungary, a second taking a more southerly course through 
Dalmatia, while the remainder went by way of the Alps, and, 
crossing the Adriatic, completed the journey by land.^ By 
the end of 1096 the entire force was gathered beneath the walls 
of the Eastern capital. Realizing that his own interests were 
seriously imperilled by the character and proportions which 
the expedition had assumed, the Emperor Alexius determined 
to exact from its leaders an oath that they would deliver all 
conquered territory to him, receiving it back, if they wished, 
as a fief. This gave rise to trouble, but finally, by means of 
flattery and bribes, the Emperor secured the homage of nearly 
all the chiefs. It was not till May 1097 that the real business 
of the Crusade began with the siege of Nicaea, which on June 19, 
as a result of secret negotiations, surrendered, not to the 
Crusaders, but to the Emperor. As the Crusaders had counted 
on the rich booty of the conquered city, they were furious at 
being thus cheated of what they regarded as their rights, and 
though they were compelled to accept the Emperor's terms 
of indemnity the incident deepened their antipathy toward him. 
In the long and painful march through Asia Minor their ranks 
were greatly thinned by fatigue and famine, and the quarrels 
of their leaders still further menaced their cause. But in 
October 1097 they reached Antioch, which they at once invested. 

^ It is impossible to speak with, certainty regarding the numbers of the 
army. The chroniclers themselves generally employ vague terms only, and 
when definite figures are given they are obviously little more than guess- 
work. Modern experts incline to believe that more than 600,000 men perished 
in the expedition. See I^avisse, Histoire de France, t. ii, 2e Partie, p. 233. 

83 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The tedium and disappointments of a siege conducted amid 
the heavy rains of winter, which turned their camp into a 
swamp, famine, and pestilential diseases so demoralized the 
Christian army that many deserted ; among them the poor 
Hermit, whose fanatical piety was no proof against the pangs 
of hunger; and who, captured in full flight, had to undergo 
the humiliation of a public reprimand. At the end of seven 
months, however, treachery delivered the city into the Crusaders' 
hands. At daybreak on June 3, 1098, the victors poured 
through the open gates, with wild cries of '' Dieu le volt ! " 
and slaughtered 10,000 of the inhabitants without respect 
of age or sex — ^thus giving to the infidels a fine example of 
Christian chivalry. Then, their thirst for blood for the moment 
slaked, they ceased their carnage to indulge in a fierce orgy 
of plunder and debauchery.- 

Scarcely, however, had they taken possession of the city 
when they found themselves in turn besieged by a huge Mos- 
lem army which had marched to its relief. Before long they 
were reduced to the last extremity of starvation, and those 
who only recently had been glorifying God for their successes 
now cursed Him for forsaking them. Again desertions were 
numerous ; many let themselves over the walls with ropes 
and made good their escape to the coast — among them one 
of their leaders, Stephen of Blois ; some even went over to 
the enemy. A pious fraud, the miraculous finding of the 
lance with which the side of Jesus had been pierced (though 
the trickery was so palpable that many of the Crusaders openly 
scoffed at it), served its purpose by putting fresh heart into 
them, and in the great battle of Antioch (June 28, 1098) — the 
piece of old iron representing the Holy lyance carried with 
them as their standard — ^they scattered the enemy with terrific 
and of course indiscriminate slaughter. The way to Jerusalem 
was now open. But instead of pushing forward to the accom- 
plishment of the final purpose of all their exertions they wasted 
nearly twelve months in Northern Syria, while their leaders 
quarrelled among themselves and engaged in the congenial 
occupation of conquering fiefs on their own account. It was 

84 



THE FIRST CRUSADE 

on a bright June morning in 1099 that the remnant of the 
mighty host which had left Constantinople some two years 
before — now perhaps not more than 25,000 fighting men in 
all — at length came in sight of the sacred city. A frenzy of 
devotion at once seized upon them. A great shout went up 
from their" ranks — " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! " Tears of joy 
ran down their cheeks ; they fell on their knees to kiss the 
ground on which they stood ; and then, putting off their 
armour, they advanced, with heads and feet bare, toward the 
spot hallowed by the Saviour's sufferings and death. Five 
weeks later — on July 15, 1099 — the great object of the expe- 
dition was attained, and the Holy Sepulchre delivered from 
the enemies of Christ. What followed upon the capture of 
Jerusalem was only a repetition, on a larger scale and with 
details of even greater atrocity, of what had occurred at Antioch. 
The religious fury of the victors knew no bounds, and their 
greed was equal to their brutality. The blood of the infidel 
ran in streams. The Jews were burned alive in their synagogue. 
Christian knights rode through the streets, their horses splashed 
with gore, hacking and hewing the bodies alike of the living 
and the dead. Meanwhile the praises of God resounded 
through the city along with the hoarse shouts of soldiers drunk 
with violence and the groans of the mangled and the dying ; 
a reign of universal plunder prevailed ; and in the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre a kneeling host, worn out with massacre 
and looting, lifting up their bloody hands, offered their thanks 
to God in a mood of exaltation compounded of blood-madness 
and mystical religious ecstasy. The next day the butchery 
was renewed, now in the form of a deliberate and systematic 
slaughter, and though it is true that a few young men and 
women were spared, it was not from pity, but with an eye 
to the money they would fetch in the slave-market. 

The conquest of Jerusalem was completed by the sensational 
victory of a small band of Christians over an immense Moham- 
medan host on the plains of Ascalon. 

Though further expeditions to the Holy lyand were inspired 
by news of the success which had been achieved, the real work 

8s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of the First Crusade was now over. A lyatin kingdom was 
founded at Jerusalem, on the model of a feudal state, under 
the headship of Godfrey of Bouillon, who, refusing the name 
of king, assumed the title of Baron and Defender of the Holy 
Sepulchre. Two other principalities — one at Antioch, the 
other at Hdessa — had already been established under Christian 
chiefs. A European colony was thus formed in Palestine, 
which during the next fifty years continued to increase in size, 
wealth, and power. But with its further history we are not 
for the moment concerned. 

The Influence of the Crusades 

I have dealt with this first of the Crusades in some detail, 
both because it was by far the most important of all, and 
because it may be taken in a broad way as typical. The other 
organized expeditions to the Hast will be treated as episodes 
in ^our story only. This will be the most convenient place, 
therefore, to consider, even at some risk of anticipation, the 
effect of the Crusades in general. 

It has been said, and there seems little exaggeration in 
the statement, that the Crusades may be regarded as the 
first of three great movements of advance in European history, 
the other two being the Reformation and the French Revolu- 
tion. Yet their influence, profound and far-reaching though 
it was, has to be sought, not along the line of their avowed 
purposes, but in the vast and various changes which inci- 
dentally they helped to bring about. Save that they certainly 
did secure Europe against Mohammedan invasion, they failed 
in their immediate object. The results which they actually 
achieved were for the most part such as were very remote 
indeed from the imaginations and desires of their promoters. 

Their damaging effect upon feudalism has first to be noted, 
for this was especially conspicuous in France. Many of the 
nobles who went to the Holy I^and never returned, and their 
estates escheated to the Crown, while many more were 
impoverished by the drain upon their resources which so 
large an enterprise entailed. By thus reducing in number 
86 



THE FIRST CRUSADE 

and weakening in influence the great territorial chiefs, the 
Crusades in the long run materially helped the king in the 
establishment of the royal central authority. Meanwhile, if 
the king gained on the one side at the expense of the feudal 
aristocracy, the burghers gained equally on the other. Ready 
money was mainly in their hands ; it was to them that knights 
and nobles in need of loans had to turn ; and as the merchants 
and traders thus enriched themselves land fell in value. The 
towns in particular were greatly benefited by these changing 
conditions ; in return for contributions and accommodations 
they often received charters granting special privileges from 
their overlords, against whose tyrannous exactions they were 
now able to make increasingly successful stands. Industry 
developed, the number of artisans increased rapidly owing to 
the urgent demand for arms and equipment, and the demand 
for labour tended toward the liberation of the lowest class from 
the condition of serfdom. All this meant the rise of the power 
of money and the decline of the power of land. Nor was this 
the only way in which commerce was encouraged by the 
Crusades. It received an immense stimulus from the widening 
of the area of operation, the extension of trading relationships, 
the growth of fresh tastes and the introduction of fresh com- 
modities, when, as a natural result of these martial enterprises, 
the Bast was opened up to Western trade. From the conse- 
quent increase of financial prosperity the commercial classes 
were the principal gainers. 

As we shall see later, the emergence of these commercial 
classes was to prove a powerful support to the royal authority 
in its further efforts to subdue the lawlessness of feudalism. 
At the same time it must not be forgotten that another danger 
to such authority was now to become increasingly apparent. 
Papacy and Church grew enormously in prestige and influence 
through the Crusades. The prominent part which the Pope 
played in an enterprise which was not national, but European, 
confirmed his position as supreme head of Christendom. The 
establishment of the religious-military orders of the Hospitallers 
and the Templars enhanced his power. Prelates and monastic 

87 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

houses meanwhile amassed wealth by the purchase at almost 
nominal prices of the lands of those who were eager to get 
money for the wars, and by the falling in of mortgages on 
estates encumbered for the same purpose, while the stimulation 
of pious ardour characteristic of the time led to an immense 
increase in the number and value of gifts and testamentary 
bequests. Such rapid growth of ecclesiastical power was to 
prove a source of grave political difficulty in times to come. 

More important, however, than these practical results, if 
less easy to analyse and appraise, were the effects produced 
by the Crusades in the intellectual sphere. The whole horizon 
of the medieval man was expanded, his imagination quickened 
and dilated, by contact with new peoples, new things, and 
new ideas, whether that contact was direct, as with the 
Crusader himself, or indirect, as with those who stayed at 
home and learned merely by report of what was to be seen and 
experienced beyond the seas. A current of feeling was set 
going which in the end was certain to do much to under- 
mine the dogmatic edifice of medieval theology. Inspired by 
religious fanaticism, ignorant, superstitious, and bigoted, the 
Christian warrior set out for the Holy lyand filled with the 
bitterest hatred toward foes whom he had been taught to 
regard as scarcely human, and it often happened that through 
personal intercourse alike with Jew and Saracen he learned 
his first lessons in tolerance and charity. Eastern civilization 
and culture, in many ways superior to their own, had also 
much to teach the men of the West, and vast stores of fresh 
materials were brought home b}^ them which the thought of 
Europe proceeded by little and little to assimilate. So potent 
were the influences which they thus exerted that the Crusades 
may legitimately be classed among the remote causes of the 
Renaissance. But of their further significance from this point 
of view I shall have something more to say when I come to deal 
later with the literature and art of the eleventh, twelfth, and 
thirteenth centuries. Meanwhile we may lay stress on the self- 
destructive character of the Crusades. The spirit which they 
helped to create was in the long run fatal to their continuance. 
88 



CHAPTER IV 

LOUIS VI ('LE GROS') 

II08-II37 

WB have seen that in the reign of Philippe I the anarchy 
of f eudaHsm was at its height. The reign of his son 
and successor, I^ouis VI, or ' the Fat ' (' le Gros '), 
marks the first stage in the long history of the growth and 
consolidation of the central power. 

Though, like his father, a huge feeder, and at forty-six so 
unwieldy that he was no longer able to mount a horse, L/Ouis 
was an energetic as well as a capable man. Good-natured and 
affable, he had the happy faculty of making friends, and he 
was upright and open-minded as well as shrewd and courageous. 
The chief fault with which his contemporaries charged him 
was avarice, but this may in part at least be explained by 
his pressing need of money in the carrying out of his plans. 
He had a clear conception of the responsibilities and functions 
of his position. He held it to be ** the duty of kings to repress 
with a strong hand, and by the original right of their office, 
the audacity of the great, who rend the State with their ceaseless 
wars, vex the poor, and destroy the churches." These words 
of his confidential adviser, Suger, the Abbot of Saint-Denis,^ 
express the principles which governed his policy, and by 
steady adherence to which he began the transformation of 
French monarchy from a form of territorial possession into a 
real national power. 

As a result of his determination to prove, as Suger puts it, 

'* that the efficacy of the royal virtue is not confined within 

the limits of certain places," ^ lyouis was engaged in almost 

incessant petty warfare with his vassals. His most substantial 

* In his Vie de Louis le Gros. * Ibid, 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

successes were achieved over his immediate neighbours, the 
smaller barons, whose estates surrounded his own, and who 
yet had long pillaged and plundered all about them, in defiance 
even of his protection and safe-conduct. With great deter- 
mination and patience he persisted in his efforts to stamp 
out their pestilential power, burning or razing their castles, 
Hberating towns and abbeys from their tyranny, righting the 
wrongs of those who had suffered at their hands, and estab- 
lishing security for the merchant, the pilgrim, and the labourer 
on highway and in field. This useful police work he carried 
on for many years, and by the gradual destruction of such 
dangerous foes of public peace as, for example, the haughty 
lord of Montlhery he laid the foundations of law and order 
where hitherto chaos had prevailed. The cases of Hugues 
du Puiset and Thomas de Marie may be cited as illustrations 
of the difficulties with which he had to contend. On the fertile 
plains of Beauce, Hugues, as Suger puts it, " devoured all 
the Church lands in the district," made his mere name a terror 
for miles around his fortress, and openly jeered at secular 
force and ecclesiastical denunciation. Three times his castle 
was besieged, taken, and burned by troops sent by the King 
in response to the appeals of his victims, and three times he 
rebuilt it and began his depredations afresh ; at length ending 
a life of sustained atrocity on a pious pilgrimage to the Holy 
Sepulchre. Thomas de Marie was an even more appalling 
product of triumphant feudalism. His cruelty was such as 
to amaze even his contemporaries, who were scarcely sensitive 
about such matters ; he took a fiendish delight in devising 
new tortures for the unfortunate creatures who fell into his 
clutches ; '' No one can reckon," a chronicler tells us, '' the 
number of those who died of hunger, maltreatment, and filth 
in his dungeons." For fifteen years, despite repeated attempts 
to overcome him, this desperate villain had his way ; but at 
last he was mortally wounded in a skirmish and carried a 
prisoner to I^aon, where he died. It is a certain satisfaction 
to know that he at least fell at the hands of human justice, 
and was not allowed, like so many diabolical scoundrels of 
90 • 



LOUIS VI 

the time, to make his peace with God by a journey to Jerusalem 
for his soul's salvation. 

Though much of his energy was thus taken up with matters 
near at home, lyouis also attempted to bring to submission 
some of his greater vassals, who meanwhile continued to rule 
independently in other parts of France. Much to the surprise 
of the local powers, he interfered with some effect in the affairs 
of Auvergne and Aquitaine, making the royal authority for 
the first time a real thing in the south. But otherwise this 
larger task proved be3^ond his capacity. His conflict with 
both Normandy and Flanders ended, indeed, in his discom- 
fiture. 

The special difiiculties with which he had to cope in his 
relations with Normandy had originated some j^ears before 
his reign began. Henry Beauclerk, the Conqueror's youngest 
son, had succeeded William Rufus on the English throne in 
1 100, and six years later he had defeated his elder brother, 
Robert, in a bloody engagement at Tinchebrai. Robert was 
thereupon confined in Cardiff Castle, where as a prisoner he 
spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life. Thus the 
duchy of Normandy was again united to the Crown of England, 
and Henry '' governed these two states with wisdom and 
enjoyed constant prosperity." ^ lyOuis, of course, perceived 
the danger to himself of this combination of power in the 
hands of a man who, vicious and cruel though he was, had 
plenty of strength and ability to back up his ambition. He 
therefore resolved to pursue his father Philippe's policy of 
weakening his enemy by creating or fomenting family dissen- 
sions. His immediate purpose being to separate Normandy 
from England, he espoused the cause of William Clito, Robert's 
son, who now came forward to claim the duchy in his own 
behalf. After a struggle of some years lyOuis was defeated, 
first at Brenneville and then at Breteuil. On this he appealed 
to the council which had just then met at Reims under the 
presidency of Calixtus II, and was led to hope that the Pope 
would intervene in his interests. In this, however, he was 
1 Ordericns Vitalis, Histovia Ecclesiastica. 

91 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

disappointed ; nothing practical came of his representations, 
and through the Pope's intermediation a peace was patched 
up. The terrible disaster of the White Ship, in the wreck of 
which in 1 120 Henry's only son was drowned, seemed for 
the moment like the interference of fate in Louis' behalf at a 
juncture in which neither arms nor diplomacy had availed. 
But the advantage soon passed. Henry induced the Witan 
to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor, and in 1128 
married her to Geoffrey, son of Foulques V, now Count of Anjou, 
and known as Plantagenet from the sprig of broom {planta 
genista) which he wore in his bonnet. This marriage meant 
checkmate to Louis' policy. Hitherto he had received the 
support of Anjou in his conflict with Normandy. Now Nor- 
mandy and Anjou were allied against him ; while notwith- 
standing the fact that on Henry's sudden death Stephen of 
Blois seized the English crown and Matilda's claims were 
set aside, the Anglo-Norman power was immensely extended 
on French soil. The marriage of Louis' son and heir to Alienor, 
the tiaughter of the Count of Aquitaine, proved no offset to 
this, since, as we shall see presently, the new possession was 
soon lost to the Crown. 

In the case of Flanders Louis received an equally bad rebuff. 
A party rising, the murder of the Count, Charles le Bon, and 
the disturbances which followed, gave him as suzerain an 
excuse to intervene. But this attempt to force William Clito 
on the Flemings, though successful for the moment, failed; 
war broke out between William and the rival claimant to the 
Countship, William was killed in battle, and the independence 
of Flanders remained unshaken. 

The Beginnings of the Communal Movement 

We are now in a position to realize to what extent the 
disruptive forces of feudalism were checked by Louis le Gros' 
policy. That policy was meanwhile reinforced from another 
side by the anti-feudal revolt of the towns. What is known 
as the communal movement first becomes prominent during 
his reign. 

92 



LOUIS VI 

Signs of unrest in many parts of the country had already 
shown that the miseries arising from chronic war, famines, 
pestilences, and the despotic exactions of their lords were 
little by little goading the masses of the people to despair. 
In a I^atin poem addressed to Robert le Pieux, Bishop Adalbero 
had divided society into two classes — ^those above, who prayed 
like the priests or fought like the nobles (praying and fighting 
being the only gentlemanly occupations), and those below, 
the serfs and labourers, who worked but did not count in 
the State. Yet even this self-satisfied theorist perceived with 
alarm that disturbances were threatening to interfere with 
this divinely arranged system of things, and in the true spirit 
of obstinate conservatism he deplored in advance the change 
of manners and the collapse of the social order. ^ He was right 
at least in believing that the system he loved could not continue 
unchallenged. An attempt at a general rising by the villeins 
of Normandy in 997 may be regarded as the first blow in a 
great battle which was destined to last many hundreds of 
years. The plot, however, miscarried ; its leaders were cap- 
tured by the Count of S^vreux, uncle of the reigning Duke of 
Normandy ; some were put to death with atrocious tortures ; 
others, with eyes gouged out and hands and feet cut off, were 
sent home as an object-lesson and a warning to their fellows. 
A little later, in 1024, a revolt of Breton peasants was also 
put down with barbarous cruelty. It was much too early 
as yet for any effective agrarian rising. Conditions were far 
more favourable in the towns, and it was there that the popular 
demand for justice and liberty first met with a measure of 
success. 

It would be impossible within the limits of this narrative 
to trace the progress of the French towns from the downfall 
of the Western Empire through the confusion which followed 
the barbarian invasions. It must sufiice to say in general 
terms that in the absence of any strong central control they 
suffered as much as the country districts from the growing 
evils of feudalism, and were so completely at the mercy of 

* Poime sur le Rigne de Robert. 

93 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

their lord that they could claim no rights of self-government, 
and had no power of appeal against him when, as often 
happened, his exactions became unreasonable and excessive. 
The increasing prosperity of the towns which came with the 
development of industry and commerce naturally made them 
more tempting as prey to their rapacious masters, who were 
in chronic need of money, and who had come to consider it 
as their special privilege to batten on the toil of others (the 
people v/ho did not count), while they devoted themselves 
exclusively to the noble business of fighting and plundering. 
But it was out of this increasing prosperity that opposition 
to them ultimately sprang. As the burgher class grew in 
wealth they came more and more to realize their importance 
and power, and resistance to their lord, at first ill-defined, 
soon took the practical form of specific claims for rights and 
privileges in respect of civic self-government, personal liberty, 
the guaranteeing of safety for the conduct of business, and 
fixed arrangements for taxes and impositions. Hence the 
comfnunal movement, which reached its height during the 
twelfth century. This movement was not concerted ; it 
v/as general simply because the same causes w^ere everywhere 
at work, producing the same results ; though it came to a 
head earlier in the south than in the north because in the 
south some traditions had survived of the Roman municipia, 
which had tended to keep the civic spirit alive. The charters 
which formed the basis of the new relations between town 
and lord were obtained in different ways. Sometimes they were 
wrung from thje lord by force ; sometimes they were secured by 
purchase ; very rarely they were conceded of the lord's free will. 
But in any event, where they were obtained at all they assured, 
not, indeed, the complete freedom of the town from its suzerain, 
but at least the regulation of the reciprocal rights and duties, 
together with a certain amount of autonomy. 

That the communes should be bitterly opposed by the feudal 
nobility in general was of course inevitable. Vested interests 
are quick to scent danger, and they properly saw in them a 
menace to their own power. To more impartial observers 

94 



LOUIS VI 

of the conservative sort they seemed equally objectionable ; as 
to Guibert de Nogent, for example, who denounced the very 
word commune as '' new and detestable." ^ Yet in course 
of time some of the nobility found it to their advantage not 
only to grant charters, but even to establish new towns, 
publishing a charter and making known the privileges which 
would be enjoyed by those who joined the undertaking. 

In general the attitude of the Church was also one of oppo- 
sition. It is true that in the opinion of some historians the 
Church supported the movement of emancipation, and that 
those who hold this view are able to adduce instances in point. 
But the fact seems to be that the clergy made common cause 
with the people against the nobles only when the suzerainty 
-was in lay hands and they themselves were sufferers from it. 
When, on the contrary, the suzerainty was itself ecclesiastical, 
the Church showed itself the fiercest foe of the communal 
movement, while in all other cases in which their own interests 
were not involved the clergy attacked the communes as un- 
scriptural and uncanonical. According to their lights, they, 
no less than the feudal nobles, were perfectly right in so doing, 
for the spirit of self-assertion and independence was later to 
prove a powerful enemy of sacerdotalism and its assumptions. 

The policy of the King is less easy to describe in brief, because 
it was dictated rather by considerations of immediate personal 
advantage than by settled principle, and varied, therefore, at 
different times and places. On the whole, however, he favoured 
the communes because they helped him directly or indirectly 
in his struggles with the nobility. But he must not be regarded 
as supporting the burghers as burghers against the barons as 
barons. He did not aim at the destruction of feudalism ; 
he sought only to correct its abuses and to bring it into sub- 
mission to himself ; and when he interfered in the quarrels 
between towns and their lords he did so in part in the interests 
of law and order, and in part from a sense of the benefits 
which would accrue to himself. It is also to be remembered 
that though he emancipated his serfs he did not permit the 
^ De Vita Sua (in Guizot, Collection des Mimoires, t. x). 

95 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

establishment of any communal government within his own 
domains, preferring to hold the reins of power firmly in his 
own hands. His successors, however, saw more clearly than 
he had done how much the royal authority stood to gain by 
fostering the communal movement. lyouis himself conferred 
eight charters. His son conferred twenty-five. 

The communal movement was unfortunately attended here 
and there by those outbursts of violence which are generally 
inseparable from a great popular upheaval. The most famous 
of these occasional riots — that which occurred at I^aon — shows, 
however, that while deeply to be regretted they were not 
without excuse. Certain concessions were granted to that 
city by its bishop, Gaudry, who, presently regretting what 
he had done, induced the King by promises of money to cancel 
them. News of this treachery got abroad ; the episcopal 
palace was fired by an angry crowd ; the Bishop himself was 
kilied by a blow with a hatchet ; while in the general tumult 
the women of the people seized all the noble dames they could 
find* beat them, and tore their clothes. As for lyouis himself, 
whose part in the drama was neither wise nor heroic, he made 
good his safety by flight. 

We are concerned here only with the beginnings of the 
communal movement. Its further developments will be noted 
in later stages of our story. 



96 



CHAPTER V 

LOUIS VII ('LE JEUNE') 

II37-II80 

LOUIS VII, who is distinguished among the many lyouis 
of French history as ' the Young/ was a man of very 
> different character from his father, whom he succeeded 
in 1 137, for he was superstitious, credulous, and rather weak. 
None the less he followed the general lines of his father's policy, 
protecting the Church, fighting against rebellious vassals, and 
seeking to bring the forces of anarchy into submission to the 
royal power. On the whole, too, as we have seen, he favoured 
the emancipation of the towns. The continued progress of 
commerce and industry, and the consequent growth of the 
towns both in number and in population, made the communal 
movement increasingly important ; and lyOuis clearly perceived 
this, and acted accordingly ; though, like his father, he was 
guided by personal interest rather than by principle. In 
particiilar, he confirmed to the Hanse or Gviild of Paris mer- 
chants the monopolies which they had gradually assumed. 
Their armorial device — a ship with the legend Fluctuat nee 
mergitur — afterward became that of the city itself. 

Despite his piety, I^ouis' relations with the Church were 
disturbed for some years by his quarrel with Pope Innocent II 
over the appointment of the Archbishop of Bourges. This led 
not only to the King's excommunication, but indirectly to 
another result of infinitely greater moment both to him and 
to his realm. During an invasion of Champagne, which he 
had undertaken because the Count, Thibaut, had given 
asylum to the Pope's nominee, he set fire to the church at 
Vitry, and burned to death some 1300 people who had sought 
refuge in it. This crime weighed heavily upon his mind, and 

G 97 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to expiate it he resolved, against tlie advice of his old tutor 
and sagacious counsellor Suger, to join the new expedition to 
the Holy I^and for which Kurope was now busily preparing. 

The Second Crusade 

This Second Crusade was inspired by the perilous position of 
the Christians in the East. Under Godfrey of Bouillon and 
his successors the two Baldwins, the I^atin kingdom of Jeru- 
salem had continued to expand. But soon after the death of 
Baldwin II dissensions arose among the Christian leaders 
themselves which seriously jeopardized their common interests ; 
and when in 1144 the capture of Edessa by the Sultan of Aleppo 
was followed by the steady advance of the Turkish army 
things began to look very black indeed for the I^atin power 
in Syria and Palestine. Messengers were despatched post- 
haste to Europe with appeals for immediate help, and the 
Western Church was thrown into consternation by the thought 
that everything which had been gained in the First Crusade 
at the price of so much money and blood was now likely to be 
lost. ' Decisive action was necessary to avert such a disaster. 

Such was the situation when the. Church met in council 
at Easter 1146 in the little mountain town of Vezelay, and 
there the cause of Christ in the Holy I^and found its spokesman 
in the celebrated Bernard of Clairvaux. A man of extra- 
ordinary personal magnetism and an orator of marvellous 
power, this Cistercian monk possessed in a supreme degree the 
special gifts which ensure success in popular leadership, while 
the fame of his sanctity, his intellectual endowments, and 
his masterful spirit lent him an equal authority among the 
statesmen of his age. Upon the multitudes which had gathered 
at Vezelay his burning words produced an instantaneous effect ; 
hardly had he finished speaking when, as with a single voice, 
they cried aloud for a new Crusade. Then under commission 
from the Pope he set forth to stir the enthusiasm of the masses 
through France and Germany. He found the task more 
difficult than his precursor, the Hermit, had done, for the 
temper of the people was already changing. But his impas- 

98 



LOUIS VII 

sioned eloquence none the less triumphed over all obstacles, 
and such vast numbers flocked to the standard of the Cross 
that in some districts fields, castles, and towns were almost 
deserted. Notwithstanding this success, however, the new 
enterprise, even in its inception, was far from popular in 
France. A general tax imposed upon all classes to meet its 
expenses aroused great discontent, and when in 1147 the King 
rode out of his capital it was, a chronicler tells us, amid the 
imprecations of his people. 

lyouis had a royal colleague in the enterprise in the Bmperor 
Conrad III of Germany, and the strength of their united armies 
has been variously estimated at from 900,000 to 1,200,000 
fighting men. Yet despite such a splendid parade of power 
this Second Crusade v/as destined to be a lamentable failure 
from first to last. When, on the heels of the Germans, who 
without waiting for their allies had already hurried forward, 
the French reached Constantinople, such violent hostility 
instantly broke out between them and the Greeks that for the 
moment the expedition to the Holy I^and threatened to turn 
into an organized attack upon the Eastern Empire. Alive to 
his danger, the Emperor Manuel Comnenus cleverly circulated 
reports of immense booty already captured by the German 
army. The cupidity of these soldiers of Christ was at once 
aroused ; they forgot their designs upon Constantinople in 
their feverish anxiety to hasten on and share the spoils. It 
was not long, however, before they discovered the trick which 
had been played upon them, for, meeting a remnant of the 
German army in disorderly retreat, they learned that the 
main body of that army had been cut to pieces by the Seljuk 
Turks in the mountains near I^aodicea. Warned by their fate, 
the French took a more southerly route ; unwisely, as it proved ; 
for it was a route beset with so many dangers and difficulties 
that many perished by the way, while those who survived were 
exhausted and demoraHzed. At length they reached Adalia, 
on the southern coast of Asia Minor. There fresh trouble 
awaited them. The ships placed at their disposal by the 
Greeks proving insufiicient for transport, I^ouis, his nobles, 

99 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and the flower of the army monopolized them, leaving the rank 
and file to shift for themselves. Thus basely abandoned by 
their leaders, the disorganized rabble attempted to reach Syria 
by following the line of the coast ; but they were practically 
annihilated by the enemy. When at length the French and 
the Germans joined forces in Palestine only a few thousands 
w^ere left of the mighty host which had passed through Constan- 
tinople less than a year before. 

Even now the promises of the expedition might have been 
redeemed, in part at least, by strength, decision, and unity. 
Weakness, stupidity, and disagreements completed its failure. 
At a council of war held at Akka it was resolved to open the 
campaign by laying siege to Damascus. This to begin with 
was a blunder, for the Emir of Damascus was favourably 
disposed toward the Christians, and would willingly have 
entered into an alliance with them against their common 
en^my, Nureddin, now master of Edessa. But Damascus was 
a rich city, and the chance of booty was allowed to outweigh 
all other considerations. The investment therefore began ; and 
such was their assurance of success that the chiefs neglected 
their military duties to quarrel with one another about the 
distribution of the spoils. Discords, jealousies, whispers of 
treachery, charges and counter-charges of bad faith, gradually 
took all the heart out of the invading army and paralysed 
their efforts ; and it was almost a relief to them, therefore, 
when news of the approach of a great Mussulman host com- 
pelled their leaders to raise the siege. It was then proposed to 
make an attack upon Ascalon, but the ever-growing hostility 
between the 'French and the Germans rendered any further 
concerted action impossible. Conrad in disgust left Palestine 
in September 1148. lyouis remained as a pilgrim in Jerusalem 
till the spring of the next year. 

The utter failure of this Crusade caused great dissatisfaction 
throughout Europe, and its effect upon popular sentiment is 
shown by the complete collapse of Bernard's efforts to muster 
a second army to repair the fortunes of the first. His own 
reputation suffered much from the fiasco. Not content with 
100 



LOUIS VII 

being an apostle, he had also assumed the role of a prophet, 
confidently predicting God's blessing upon the expedition and 
its glorious success. He was now forced to acknowledge his 
confusion over the actual results, which he could explain only 
by reference to the sins of the Crusaders themselves, whom he 
did not hesitate to liken to the Jews of old. 

The Rise of the English Power in France 

Though in the meantime Suger had governed the realm so 
admirably that he had won for himself the title of Solomon, 
lyouis' long absence from his country was a great mistake, for 
it meant loss of personal influence and prestige. On his return 
he was guilty of what, from a purely political point of view, 
was a far more serious blunder. His marriage, during his 
father's lifetime, to Alienor of Aquitaine, or Guyenne, has already 
been referred to. This promised much for the expansion of 
the royal power. It was by this time firmly established that 
women could inherit fiefs and exercise all the feudal rights 
appertaining to them. This principle, we may note in passing, 
proved in the long run one cause of the extinction of the great 
feudal families, for as many men were killed in war fiefs con- 
tinually passed into the hands of women, who by marriage 
often merged them with other fiefs. Alienor was heiress of 
the duchy of Guyenne, which included, along with other vassal 
states, the counties of Poitou and Perigord and the duchy of 
Gascony, and thus she brought to her husband a territory 
covering about one-half of Southern France. The consequent 
accession in strength which this ensured to the Crown is obvious. 
Unfortunately, however, misunderstandings arose between lyouis 
and his wife. She made no secret of the fact that she cor- 
dially detested him ; he on his part was bitterly annoyed 
by her light behaviour, and rightly or wrongly believed that 
during his absence she had been faithless to him. Suger did 
his best to prevent the trouble from coming to a head ; but 
his death in 1152 removed the only restraining influence, and 
two months later — ^in the March of that same year — at the 
request of both parties, the marriage was annulled by the 

lOI 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Council of Beaugency. Almost immediately after this Alienor 
married again, her second husband being Henry Plantagenet, 
the son of Geoffrey and Matilda. Now Henry was already 
Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and Duke of Normandy, 
and his wife's possessions being added to his own, he became 
master of all the v/est of France, from the Norman coast to 
the Pyrenees. Thus when he ascended the English throne 
in 1 154 as Henry II, the first of the Angevin, line, the French 
territories of the English King formed a compact state as 
great in extent and power as that directly ruled by his nominal 
suzerain, the King of France, himself. It was fortunate for 
Louis that Henry, through his quarrel with the Church, his 
troubles with Becket, and the intrigues of his rebellious sons, 
was too much entangled in domestic affairs to pay any close 
attention to things in France. Indeed, the murder of Becket 
wa^ distinctly to lyouis' advantage, for it gave him the oppor- 
tunity to appeal to the Pope against Henry, with results 
familiar to every reader of English history. But the anomaly 
of tiie situation thus created v/as pregnant of danger for time 
to come. Here we have the real beginning of that long 
and bitter struggle between the French and English dynasties 
v/hich will fill a considerable space in future chapters of this 
story. 



102 



CHAPTER VI 

PHILIPPE II (' PHILIPPE-AUGUSTE ') 

I 180-1223 

LOUIS VIII ('LE LION') 

I223-1226 

THE reign of Philippe II, called ' Auguste/ from the month 
of his birth, covers an important period in the history 
both of the French monarchy and of French civilization. 
In the struggle between the central authority and disintegrating 
forces of feudalism a decisive victory was at length gained by 
the former. The great nobles had now for the first time to 
recognize the supremacy of the King of France as the sole 
administrator and legislator of the realm. This consolidation 
of the royal power was accompanied by a steady growth in 
unity among the long-scattered elements of the French people. 
Those sectional differences by which the country had hitherto 
been broken up into fragments began to disappear, and with 
the amalgamation which attended increasing coherence the 
French nation came into existence. 

These momentous changes were, of course, largely the result 
of the many general forces — ^industrial, religious, social, poli- 
tical — ^which were at work at the time. But the personal 
part of the King himself in them must still be emphasized. 
A man of great ability, clear-sighted, cool, calculating, firm, 
entirely unscrupulous, yet public-spirited enough to be genuinely 
interested in the welfare and progress of his subjects, Philippe 
was just the ruler to make capital out of the weakness of his 
enemies and to turn the complexities of the hour to the best 
account. He had the advantage, too, of knowing his own 
mind. From first to last his policy was consistently governed 

103 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

by one aim — ^the increase of his power at the expense of his 
nobility. To this object he bent all his energies, and the success 
which crowned his efforts constitutes the central interest of his 
reign. 

The sonof Louis VII by his second wife, Alix of Champagne, 
Philippe succeeded his father when he was only fifteen. His 
youth and inexperience gave the feudal nobility, as they 
themselves were quick to perceive, an opportunity to regain 
a portion at least of the ground they had lost under the late 
King. But Philippe soon showed that he was not to be played 
with. He had not been long on the throne when he was involved 
in a quarrel with one of his most powerful vassals, the Count 
of Flanders, over certain rights in respect of the counties of 
Vermandois, Valois, and Amiens. The Count had the support 
of the northern barons. Yet Philippe beat him ; reduced him 
to ^submission ; and forced him to cede Amiens and a portion 
of Vermandois to the Crown (1185). This was a remarkable 
achievement for a youth of twenty ; and the new possessions 
thus obtained, together with the county of Artois, which formed 
the dowry of his first wife, Isabelle of Hainaut, whom he 
married in 1191, greatly extended his domains on the north. 
Already he took up a strong position regarding the rights of 
kingship. The lord of the county of Amiens was the bishop 
of that city ; and the bishop demanded that Philippe should 
do homage to him for it in accordance with feudal custom. 
But Philippe threw feudal custom to the winds. " We neither 
can nor ought to render homage to any one," was his reply. 
This was a new conception of the place and prerogatives of 
royalty. Philippe's assertion meant that the Crown was now . 
lifted above the feudal plexus, and that henceforth the king 
was to be regarded as something more than a feudal chief. 

Philippe's Struggle with England 

Such internal disputes were, however, insignificant compared 
with the great conflict with the English King which occupied 
Philippe till almost the end of his life, and which he carried 
on with untiring energy and persistency because he realized 
104 



PHILIPPE II 

that the power of the BngHsh Crown in France was the most 
formidable rival of his own. One fixed purpose with him, 
therefore, was to dislodge the English from their possessions 
in his realm. 

Henry ir, now growing old and weary, was no longer able 
to cope with his rebellious sons, among whom, soon after 
Philippe ascended the throne, fierce dissensions broke out 
concerning their rights or claims in France. The family war 
was carried into Guyenne, which was ravaged without mercy 
by the opposing armies. Then Henry, the eldest, and Geoffrey, 
the second son, died, the former without issue ; while the wife 
of the latter, Constance, Duchess of Brittany, shortly after- 
ward gave birth to a boy whom she named Arthur. Philippe, 
who, following his father's policy, had vigilantly watched for 
every chance to turn these English troubles to his own profit, 
now sided with Henry's third son, Richard, when in 1189 that 
turbulent and intractable young prince took arms against his 
father, Richard acknowledging the French King's aid by 
consenting to do homage to him for his fiefs. Shattered in 
health and spirit, Henry was no match for the forces arrayed 
against him ; and, having lost the chief castles in Maine and 
the city of I/C Mans, he agreed to a humiliating treaty of peace 
in which he expressly recognized Philippe as his liege lord, and 
the terms of which further included an indemnity to all Richard's 
followers, the cession of the territory of Issoudun, and the 
renunciation of all claims to suzerainty over the county of 
Auvergne. The discovery of the name of his youngest and 
favourite son, John, in the list of his enemies came as a fatal 
shock, and, broken-hearted, Henry died suddenly at Chinon, 
on July 6 of that same year. 

The Third Crusade 

Two years before this Europe had been surprised and horrified 
by the news that Jerusalem had been captured by the Sultan 
of Syria and Egypt, Salah-ed din, famous in history and 
romance as Saladin. The effect of this intelligence was, indeed, 
so great that Philippe and Henry paused in their struggle and 

105 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

met at Gisors to discuss the question of peace and the possi- 
biHty of joining forces in the common cause of Christendom. 
The two kings even embraced and assumed the Cross ; but 
despite their pious vows, their agreement, as we have seen, 
came to nothing. 

Meanwhile, the call for a new Crusade had gone forth, and 
the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after some hesitation, had 
undertaken to lead a German army in person, while the Dukes 
of Austria, Swabia, and Moravia had also promised their 
support. The excellent understanding which for the moment 
existed between Philippe and Richard, now King of England, 
made the way clear for their co-operation in the enterprise. 
Richard accordingly hurried to England, and, the coronation 
ceremonies over, proceeded to raise money for the holy expedi- 
tion by the cruel persecution and robbery of the Jews, the 
imposition of a special tax called the Saladin Tithe, and the sale 
oi all the offices, dignities, and royal lands for which he could 
find a purchaser. Then, hastening back to France, he met 
Philippe at Vezelay. There the two kings entered into a 
solemn undertaking, exchanging guarantees of mutual support 
against all who should trouble the peace of either realm during 
their absence, and swearing each one to defend the other's 
rights as if they were his own. To what extent either party 
to this contract was actually in earnest at the time it was made 
we do not know. But we do know that these royal vows were 
soon to be proved as valueless as dicers' oaths. 

Taught by the disasters which had overtaken the former 
two expeditions, the leaders of this Third Crusade laid their 
plans with the greatest care and paid infinite attention to even 
the minutest details. In particular, the composition of the 
forces was regulated with extreme severity. The vagabonds, 
adventurers, and scoundrels who had swollen the ranks of 
the earlier armies and had done them so much damage were 
now entirely eliminated ; only actual combatants were enrolled ; 
and special precautions were taken to ensure order and thorough 
military discipline. 

The German army took the lead, and on April 23, 1188, 
106 



PHILIPPE II 

more than 100,000 men, under Frederick's command, marched 
out of Regensburg. They followed the overland route through 
Constantinople, Mysia, and Phrygia, and for a time all went 
well with them ; for they took Iconium by storm, and crossing 
the Taurus made their way, though amid many difficulties, to 
the coast. Then their misfortunes began. In tr3dng to cross 
a small stream near Seleucia Frederick was drowned. This 
tragedy deeply affected the spirit of the soldiers, already much 
worn by fatigue ; famine and the repeated attacks of the 
enemy played havoc with them ; disease set in, and general 
demoralization followed in its train. Many of them at once 
returned to Europe, and, desertions being now added to deaths, 
it was but a small remnant of Frederick's vast army that the 
Duke of Swabia ultimately led forward into Palestine. There 
they were presently joined by several minor bands of Germans 
who had come independently, and, later, by the armies of 
Richard and Philippe, which had taken the sea route : the 
former sailing from Marseille, the latter from Genoa. A general 
reunion of the Christian forces took place before the walls of 
Akka, the siege of which b3^ the Germans had already lasted 
nearly two years when Philippe and Richard arrived. Bitter 
animosity at once declared itself between the two royal chiefs. 
This was not the beginning of trouble. The alliance had 
been rudely disturbed by various feuds on the way. Richard's 
turbulent spirit chafed under the restraints imposed by his 
relations with Philippe as vassal with lord, and the smouldering 
fires of discord were read}^ at any moment to burst out into 
flame. At Messina, where the fleets wintered, Richard repu- 
diated his engagement to marry Philippe's sister, and the 
quarrel which ensued almost led to an actual rupture. Peace 
was restored for the time, but the condition was still one of 
unstable equilibrium, and almost from the hour of their arrival 
at Akka their rivalries and contentions kept the Christian army 
in a state of perpetual agitation. TheKnglish chroniclers lay 
all the blame on Philippe's shoulders ; they declare that he 
was jealous of Richard's manifest superiority in the field, and 
was bitterly aggrieved because (as one writer puts it) he was 

107 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

obscured by Richard as the moon's light is obscured by the 
sun's. There is doubtless a measure of truth in this view. 
But on the other hand the French chroniclers are unques- 
tionably right in their opinion that one chief source, if not the 
chief source, of difficulty was Richard's own character. Arro- 
gant, hot-headed, fierce-tempered, self-willed, hectoring and 
perfidious, the English King was an impossible man to get on 
with, and if Philippe had personal reasons to dread and distrust 
Richard, Richard's conduct throughout was certainly calculated 
to deepen his feelings of animosity into the fiercest hatred. 

Notwithstanding these unfortunate dissensions, however, and 
other bickerings among the leaders of the Christian army which 
do not belong to our present story, the siege was finally success- 
ful, and in 1191 Akka was forced to capitulate.^ Upon this 
the Crusaders should of course have pressed on without delay 
to Jerusalem, the recovery of which was the main object of 
their expedition. Instead, their chiefs wasted their time and 
strength in incessant wrangling. Then, in 1192, Philippe, 
assigning the charge of the French army to the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, returned to Paris, which he reached after an absence 
of eighteen months. The reason alleged by Philippe himself 
for this abandonment of the Crusade was ill-health, though it 
was very commonly supposed that he had become disgusted 
with the secondary rSle he had to play beside his domineering 
vassal.^ The real reason, however, was his anxiety to steal 
a march upon him. He saw the chance, while Richard was 
preoccupied in the Bast, to undermine his power in France. 

Richard was now left in undivided chief command of the 
Christian forces, and soon proved himself totally unfitted for 
the position. He was capable, indeed, of performing prodigies 
of personal valour which aroused the admiration even of the 
Saracens, and such was his reckless daring that, fighting 
" almost single-handed," he would bring back the heads of 

^ The city was then handed over to the Knights of St John ; whence its 
new name of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, by which it has since been known in French 
history. 

^ Michaud, Histoire des Croisades (1841), t. i, p. 131. 

108 



PHILIPPE II 

his foes, " sometimes ten in a day, sometimes twelve, or 
twenty, or thirty, as they happened to fall in his way." ^ But 
he was wholly wanting in the elements of generalship. His 
impetuosity was fatal ; he knew and cared nothing for method 
and strategy ; and he thought far less of the object of the 
holy war and the success of the Christian arms than of his 
own individual glory and the gratification of his passion for 
fighting. Misguided and mismanaged by this lion-hearted but 
hare-brained hero, the Crusaders wasted valuable time in 
absurd or useless adventures and neglected every opportunity 
for steady advance. Twice undertaken, the march to Jeru- 
salem was twice abandoned without justification. Discontent, 
disease, and treason spread through the host. Then, learning 
that his brother John was plotting against him with Philippe, 
Richard resolved to throw up the enterprise, and in hot haste 
signed a treaty with Saladin which secured to the Christians 
as the only substantial gain of all their efforts the privilege 
of free access, as unarmed pilgrims, to all holy places for a 
period of three years three months and three days. It is not 
surprising that this pitiful conclusion of a great war was 
received with a storm of curses by the Christians through- 
out Palestine, who held that the selfish King had betrayed 
their cause. Richard, however, recked little of their feelings. 
Without waiting for his army or fleet, he sailed alone for 
Europe on October 25, 1192 ; was shipwrecked near Venice ; 
and started to make the journey in disguise through the 
dominions of his bitter enemy, the Duke of Austria. But he 
was recognized, seized, and handed over to Henry VI of 
Germany, who, flouting all considerations of justice and 
decency, threw him into prison and demanded a heavy ransom 
for his release. He was not set at liberty till March 1194. 

Philippe's Struggle with England Renewed 

These eighteen months furnished Philippe with the oppor- 
tunity for which he had been waiting, and it must be admitted 

^ Geoffrey de Vinsauf, liinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi, I^ib. Ill, 
c. xxix. 

109 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

that in availing himself of it he acted very badly. Before 
leaving Saint-Jean-d'Acre he had solemnly renewed his engage- 
ments with Richard, but during his stay in Rome on his 
homeward w^ay he had tried to induce the Pope, Celestine III, 
to absolve him from his vows. Failing in this, he proceeded 
to set these vows aside on his own account. John was now 
busily intriguing to get possession of the English crown, and 
in his anxiety to obtain Philippe's help went so far as to engage 
to do homage to him not only for his French fiefs, but even for 
England itself. Philippe saw that he could use John as a 
tool. He therefore invaded Normandy in his behalf, seized 
E^vreux, and laid siege to Rouen. But the ransom of Richard 
deranged all his plans, and for a time fortune turned against 
him ; for Richard arrived in Normandy at the head of a 
strong army, defeated the French at Freteval (1194) and 
Vernon (1198), and built near I^es Andelys the mighty fortress 
called the Chateau Gaillard, to command the Seine and block 
the Norman frontier. These successes made him for the 
moment master of the situation. But shortly afterward, while 
besieging the castle of Chains in a foolish quarrel with his 
insubordinate vassal, the Viscount of lyimoges, he was fatally 
wounded by a chance shot of an archer. 

Richard's death was followed by an immediate change in 
Philippe's policy, and John, on ascending the throne, found an 
implacable enemy in the man who had hitherto posed as 
his friend. The dissensions in the Plantagenet family greatly 
favoured the French King's ambitions. John's nephew, 
Arthur, had inherited his father's estates in France, and in 
right of his mother he was also heir to the duchy of Brittany. 
John, on the other hand, claimed the duchy of Normandy 
as an inheritance from William the Conqueror, and various 
other states — among them Poitou and Guyenne — through his 
mother Alienor, lyouis VII's divorced wife. In this compli- 
cated condition of things Philippe perceived that his interest 
lay in the espousal of Arthur's cause. John's atrocious beha- 
viour, first in the abduction of Isabelle Taillefer of Angouleme, 
and afterward in the murder of Arthur, arousing as it did a 
no 




Q 
Pi 
< 
i-r 

O 

P 
<J 
w 
n 

«! 
W 

o 

w 



PHILIPPE II 

storm of popular indignation, gave Philippe ample cause'* for 
action. Taking his stand on his rights as suzerain, he ordered 
John to appear before him to answer for his conduct as vassal 
to lord. The course was unprecedented, but John did not 
dare to refuse outright. In his characteristically shifty way he 
first promised obedience, and then broke his promise. Upon 
this it was formally declared that he had forfeited the fiefs 
which he held from the French Crown, and Anjou, Touraine, 
and Poitou were duly incorporated in the royal domains. 
Philippe also marched into Normandy, seized city after city — 
Falaise, Caen, Bayeux, I^isieux — and (greatest achievement of 
all) captured Richard's powerful, and, as it was believed, 
impregnable, fortress, the Chateau Gaillard.^ Even John's 
mean spirit was stirred by these reverses, and, realizing the 
impossibility of acting alone, he had recourse to outside help, 
and entered into a formidable coalition with the Counts of 
Flanders and Boulogne, who welcomed the chance of striking 
a blow at Philippe's supremacy, the Duke of Brabant, and 
the Guelph Emperor Otho IV, who was becoming exceedingly 
jealous of the fast-growing power of France. Philippe had 
now to face the greatest danger of his reign. The attacks of the 
allies were to be delivered simultaneously in the north and 
in the south. Philippe's son I^ouis was sent to repel John in 
Poitou. Philippe himself marched out against the main body 
of the enemy at the head of an army composed both of northern 
nobles and their vassals and of the militia of the communes, 
which had promptly answered his appeal for aid. The opposed 
armies met at Bouvines, between lyille and Tournay, and 
there, on January 27, 1214, the armies of the allies were routed 

^ The above is a very condensed account of the intricate and obscure 
relations of Philippe and John during the early years of the latter' s reign. 
It is not known for certain whether the command to appear before Philippe 
and the confiscation of the fiefs occurred before or after Arthur's murder ; 
popular report says after ; but popular report is probably wrong (see the 
essay by Charles Bemont in the Revue historique, t. xxxii, 1884). It is, 
however, possible, as P. Guilhiermoz maintains (see BihliotMque de I'^cole 
des Charles, January and February, 1899), that John was summoned twice 
before Philippe, once after the abduction of Isabelle, and once in consequence 
of the death of the young prince. 

Ill 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

with great slaughter. This signal victory was much more 
than a matter of momentary glory. It gave a practical 
demonstration of Philippe's power alike to the French nobility 
and to the rest of Europe, and it thus settled the Capetian 
dynasty more firmly than ever on the throne. 

Incidentally Bouvines also affected the history both of 
Germany and of England. It was at least a part cause of the 
downfall of Otho. It was at least a part cause of the revolt 
of the barons against John. Philippe's son lyouis was now 
called in to take the leadership of the English nation, and 
reached I^ondon in May 1216. For the moment it seemed 
likely that the English monarchy was to be merged in that of 
France. But the death of John, the interference of the Pope 
in favour of John's young son, Henry III, and the revulsion 
of feeling which now turned the barons against the foreigner 
to whom they had only* just appealed, destroyed all lyouis* 
9hances of success, and the next year he returned to Paris, 
having renounced once and for all his pretensions to the English 
crown. 

The Fourth Crusade 

Of the other events of Philippe's reign the most important 
were two armed expeditions of a religious character which, 
though properly classed among the Crusades, were markedly 
different in object and results from those which had preceded 
them. 

The first of these — the Fourth Crusade as it is called — had 
its origin in the policy of Innocent III for the expansion of 
the papal power in the East. He enjoined Alexius III of 
Constantinople to support the Christian armies, while he sent 
missionaries through Europe to preach peace to a Christendom 
rent by internal strife and to make ample promises in his 
name of forgiveness of sins and heavenly blessing to all who 
would set aside their own interests for the sake of the holy 
cause. It was still easy to fire the enthusiasm of the masses, 
and more than 200,000 persons are said to have taken the vow. 
But these were principally churls or adventurers, who provided 
112 



PHILIPPE II 

but poor material for the real business of war. The knightly 
classes, on the other hand, were slow to yield even to the 
appeals of Foulques of Neuilly, who specially distinguished 
himself among the French apostles of the enterprise by his 
zeal and eloquence. Finally a few of the greater nobles were 
induced to assume the Cross ; among them, the Counts of 
Flanders, Blois, and Champagne. It was decided to aim, not 
at Jerusalem, but at Egypt, which had become the centre of 
Mussulman power ; the sea route was chosen ; the date of 
departure was fixed for April 1202 ; and arrangements were 
made with Venice, whose interest in the Crusade was entirely 
commercial, for vessels for transport and for provisions for 
the voyage. But when the time came the Crusaders found 
themselves unable to pay the 85,000 silver marks which they 
had promised, and they were glad enough to be allowed to 
discharge their obligations by aiding the Venetians to conquer 
the city of Zara, on the coast of Dalmatia. The Pope was 
angry when he learned of this diversion of the expedition from 
its true object ; but all his thunders produced no effect. The 
way was now clear for the business of the enterprise to proceed ; 
but the abandoned purpose was never revived. Disturbances 
in Constantinople had placed a usurper on the Byzantine 
throne ; Alexius Angelus, son of the deposed Emperor, appealed 
to the Crusaders for help ; his appeal was reinforced by promises 
of material advantages made by the Venetians, who saw a 
splendid opportunity of furthering their commercial interests 
in the East ; and so little religious fervour and so great a 
greed for gain animated the Christian army that, notwith- 
standing the emphatic prohibition of the Pope, the expedition 
against the Mohammedans was without the slightest difficulty 
transformed into an expedition against the Greeks. Constan- 
tinople was taken by storm in 1204, and in the sack of the city 
which followed countless treasures of ancient art were ruthlessly 
destroyed, while nearly all the silver and bronze statues and 
the fine metal-work of the churches was melted down as booty. 
In the end a I^atin Empire was founded at Constantinople, 
with Baldwin, Count of Flanders, as its first head. This 

H 113 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Empire, which lasted for a Httle more than half a century, 
was the one conspicuous achievement of the Fourth Crusade. 
For the cause of Christianity in the Holy lyand it accomplished 
absolutely nothing. But the Pope had his reward in the 
estabHshment for the time of his supremacy in the Eastern 
Church. 

The Crusade against the Albigenses ^ 

The second of the religious wars now in question, that against 
the Albigenses, differs from those already mentioned in these 
pages in that it was waged, not against a race of alien infidels, 
but against a European and Christian people. It is one of the 
most shocking episodes in medieval history. 

The Albigenses were a sect, or, more strictly speaking, a group 
of sects, of heretics who, though dating from some two hundred 
years before, became prominent in the south of France about 
the beginning of the thirteenth century.^ They held doctrines 
on many important points which were so fundamentally at 
variance with those of official Christianity that the Bishop of 
Marseille described them as " sons of Belial," while Pope 
Innocent III did not hesitate to declare that they were " more 
wicked than the Saracens." Faihng in his attempt to make 
good CathoHcs out of them by missionary effort. Innocent 
called upon the King of France to root out their errors with 
the sword. Philippe, however, held aloof, not from conscien- 
tious scruples (for he was always ready enough to persecute 
heretics), but because he was too deeply occupied with his 
own affairs. - His indifference did not affect the Pope's success. 
An immediate excuse for the expedition was provided by the 
murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau by a servant 
of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse ; its real object was to 
dispossess the Count because of the protection which, it was 
alleged, he had extended to the misbelievers. Pardons and 

1 The name is derived from the district of Albigeois, in the county of 
Toulouse, the capital of which was Albi, now in the department of Tarn. 
In estimating the character and conduct of these sects it is necessary to 
remember that most of our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts 
of their bitter and unscrupulous enemies. 

114 



PHILIPPE II 

absolutions were freely promised, with the lavish generosity 
which commonly characterized the head of the Church when 
he needed assistance for his own purposes, to all who helped 
the cause of God by slaughtering those who differed from 
them ; and it is a noteworthy fact that the northern nobles, 
inspired in part by that animosity against the south to which 
reference has already been made, showed themselves more 
eager to take up arms against their fellow-countrymen than 
they had lately done to march out against the Mussulman. 
A weak and vacillating man, Raymond sought to avert the 
storm by humiliating penances and protestations of obedience 
to the Holy See. But orthodox fanaticism and the passion 
for fighting and gain had been aroused, and were not now to 
be restrained. An army of 200,000 men, led by Arnold, Abbot 
of Citeaux, took Beziers by storm, and demonstrated their 
Christian zeal by wholesale slaughter and pillage. " Then," 
writes an anonymous chronicler of this holy war, " the greatest 
massacre that ever was in all the world took place, for no one 
was spared, neither young nor old, nor even the baby at the 
breast : all were killed and exterminated. . . . The city was 
looted, and everywhere set on fire, so that it was all devas- 
tated and burned, and no one in it was left alive." ^ Then the 
brutal and callous Simon de Montfort, just home from the 
Fourth Crusade, was appointed chief commander of the forces, 
and swept the whole beautiful country of Toulouse with fire 
and sword, burning all the towns which fell into his hands 
and ruthlessly slaying their inhabitants. He was rewarded 
by the gift of the lands he had conquered and wasted, but, as 
one is happy to add, was killed by a stone at the siege of 
Toulouse before he could enter into possession of them. Still 
the war went on, fostered by the rancorous spirit of bigotry 
which was kept alive by the Pope's representatives and by 
their repeated promises of heavenly blessings, while Raymond 
VII made a brave stand against the overwhelming odds against 
him. To carry this tragic stor}^ to its close, though in doing 
so we have for the moment to pass beyond the proper limits 

^ Histoire de la Guerre des Albigeois. 

"5 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of this chapter, I may say at once that in the end, after thou- 
sands had perished on both sides and the fairest parts of 
Southern France had been turned into a blackened wilderness, 
Raymond in 1229 purchased peace and relief from the ban 
of the Church by the payment of large sums of money, the 
immediate cession of various lordships to the King, then 
lyouis IX, and the undertaking to make lyouis' brother the 
heir to all his other territories. Incidentally, therefore, the 
power of the Crown was increased by this lamentable war. 
The heretics were handed over to the tender mercies of a 
papal commission and the Dominican Order, and orthodox 
truth, aided by torture and the stake, soon prevailed over 
those damnable errors which had moved the Pope first 
to sorrow and then to wrath. One further result of this 
crusade must be noted in the almost complete destruction 
of the culture and art which had flourished on southern 
Ffench soil. 

The Administration of Philippe-Auguste 

To complete this brief survey of Philippe's reign it is neces- 
sary to re-emphasize and supplement what was said at the 
outset about its importance in the making of French history. 
It covers a period of marked progress in many directions — 
progress, fortunately, but little interrupted by the King's 
two collisions with the Church.^ '* I desire," he once said to 
one of his counsellors, " that at the end of my reign the Crown 
shall be as powerful as it was in Charlemagne's time." We 
have seen how much he actually did toward the fulfilment of 
this ambition. He more than doubled the royal domains ; he 
was the largest landowner in France ; he was rich ; and he 
forced even the greatest of the feudal nobles to respect his 
supremacy. In order to check the ruinous practice of private 

^ In the first case he drew upon himself the edict of excommunication by 
repudiating Ingeburge of Denmark, whom he had taken as his second wife, 
and marrying Agnes of Meranie. Though he held out for eight months, he 
was then forced to yield to the Pope. In the second case he incurred the 
anger of Innocent III by taking possession of John's confiscated fiefs ; but 
in this instance he held his own, and successfully. 

116 » 




vO 



tt 

o 
!^ 

O 

P 
w 

M 

a 

w 



PHILIPPE II 

war to which, despite ecclesiastical denunciations, these nobles 
still clung as a right, he proclaimed the quarantaine le roy, 
or forced truce of forty days between the injury received and 
the recourse to arms to avenge it : an interval which gave 
time for the subsidence of angry passions and opportunity for 
the peaceful settlement of difficulties. The hereditary character 
of the monarchy was so firmly established by him that, as I 
have already said, departing from the practice hitherto followed 
by the Capetians, he did not have his son crowned as his 
successor during his lifetime. 

His reign was further significant for important changes in 
administration. The chief official of the Capetian Court had 
been the seneschal, who regulated all affairs and dispensed 
justice in the king's name. Philippe saw that the power of 
this official was steadily increasing to a dangerous extent. 
He therefore abolished the office altogether, assigning the 
charge of the army to a Connetable, and that of justice to an 
ecclesiastic who was called the Chancelier. He found it neces- 
sary also to curb the prdvots, or local managers of the royal 
estates, who, in the spirit of the time, had been tending more 
and more to regard their functions as hereditary. He accord- 
ingly placed over them a number of new officers, named haillis, 
who were directly responsible to him for the finances and 
justice of the districts committed to their supervision. More 
than either his father or his grandfather he perceived the 
advantages to be gained by the monarchy from the emanci- 
pation of the towns and the alliance of the king with the 
bourgeoisie. Hence he greatly favoured the communal move- 
ment, which continued to make headway during his reign. 
The progress of Paris, his capital and place of residence, was 
remarkable. He found it a city of narrow, tortuous streets 
close-packed with low and dirty houses. He enlarged its 
boundaries, improved its fortifications, surrounded it with a 
crenated wall with thirteen gates and five hundred towers, 
built markets and hospitals, constructed drains, and paved 
the principal thoroughfares with stone. He also began the 
castle of the I^ouvre, on the site of the present palace ; while 

117 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Notre-Dame, commenced under his father, was nearly finished 
during his Hfetime. The Paris of his day, though vastly 
different, of course, from the Paris we know, now began to 
take some of the traits of the modern city. Extending on 
both sides of the Seine, with the He de la Cite as its centre, it 
already accommodated 120,000 inhabitants, and by the fame 
of its university, of which I shall speak in a future chapter, 
it attracted students in large numbers from all parts of Europe. 

Louis VIII 

Philippe died at fifty-seven, and was succeeded by his son, 
Ivouis VIII, who was then thirty-five. Louis' reign, which 
lasted only three years, has, however, very little indepen- 
dent interest in histor5-^ Trained under his father, and sur- 
rounded by his father's counsellors, he continued the policy 
the success of which he had had ample opportunity of appre- 
cid^ting. In his contest with the feeble Henry III of England 
he completed the conquest of Poitou and other portions of 
South-western France, while the close of the crusade against 
the Albigenses made him practically the master of I^anguedoc. 
He thus further extended and consolidated the royal authority 
and aided the unification of the nation. But his chief distinc- 
tion lies in the fact that he was the connecting link between 
two monarchs much greater than himself. He was the son 
of Philippe- Auguste and the father of lyouis IX. 



118 



CHAPTER VII 

LOUIS IX ('ST LOUIS') 

I226-I270 

BOTH the character and the reign of Ivouis IX, called ' the 
Saint/ ^ have great importance in history. Personally 
he v/as the finest product of the Christianity of his time, 
and the fullest embodiment of its virtues and ideals. At the 
same time his reign marks the culmination of the medieval 
monarchy in France. 

Born in 12 15, he was not yet twelve when, on his father's 
death in 1226, he succeeded to the throne. The question of 
regency was settled by his mother, Blanche of Castile, who 
at once had him crowned at Reims, and then proceeded to 
rule in his name. At the same time she devoted herself 
with great ardour to the boy's education, which she per- 
sonally superintended in all its details. A woman of practical 
genius, great energy and courage, and rigorous piety, she 
exerted an immense influence in the moulding of her son's 
character, and the impress which she stamped upon it was 
indelible. 

Her ability to maintain the position which she had assumed 
was soon brought to a decisive test. The great nobles had 
chafed under the repressive policy of the two preceding kings. 
In the fact that France now had a boy on the throne and a 
woman as ruler they saw an excellent opportunity for the 
reassertion of their independence. The unpopularity of 
Blanche, who as a Spaniard was distrusted and disliked, gave 
them a further motive for revolt. In the first year of the 
regency the royal house was accordingly threatened by a 
formidable coalition of feudal chiefs. The conspiracy had the 
^ He was canonized by Boniface VIII in 1297. 

119 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

support of the Counts of I^a Marche and Toulouse, the Dukes 
of Burgundy and Brittany, Henry III of England, and even 
the young King's uncle, the Count of Boulogne. Events soon 
proved, however, that its leaders had hopelessly misjudged the 
quality of the woman whose overthrow was the first object 
of their exertions. Blanche rose to the occasion, and gave 
instant proof of her courage, resolution, and cleverness. By 
her beauty and persuasive power she succeeded in detaching 
from the league one of its most dangerous adherents, Thibaut, 
Count of Champagne, and winning him to her side. Then she 
marched with extraordinary rapidity and vigour against the 
insurgent nobles, and everywhere secured a victory over them. 
The contest continued, indeed, for several years, even after 
the back of the conspiracy had been broken ; but the Treaty 
of Saint- Aubin-du-Cormier in 1231 registered the triumph of 
royalty over the feudal aristocracy. The Duke of Brittany 
still held out, but the next year witnessed his subjection. 
Blanche also worked for the unity of the country and the 
power of the Crown by peaceful means as well as by the 
sword. The marriage of her son in 1234 with Marguerite, eldest 
daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, was of her 
negotiation. Politically this was an excellent move, for it 
allied Provence to the royal cause. 

As a result of his mother's energies I/Ouis on coming of age 
in 1236 found himself the ruler of a kingdom which, despite 
the shocks which it had lately withstood, was as well consoli- 
dated as it had been in his father's time. Yet the continued 
unrest of the nobility was still fatal to internal peace. In 
1242 he was called upon to face a new coalition headed by 
the Count of I^a Marche and backed by the English King, 
who himself took the field. It was now that for the first time 
I^ouis had a chance of showing his mettle. The allies were 
defeated at Taillebourg and Saintes, and Henry III had to 
fly to Bordeaux. At this juncture lyouis was prostrated by 
illness, and the campaign was brought to a premature close. 
The power of the rebellious nobles was again crushed, but 
Louis refused to follow up his advantage against Henry, though 
120 



LOUIS IX 

that King's quarrels with his barons at home left lyouis a free 
hand in France. Indeed, he even came to the conclusion that 
some of his grandfather's annexations had been unjust, and 
to satisfy his conscience he restored lyimousin, Quercy, Perigord, 
and other provinces to the English Crown, But as Henry on 
his side responded by relinquishing all claims to Poitou, 
Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and Normandy,^ lyouis did not lose 
by the transaction. His uprightness in these and other dealings 
so impressed the English imagination that Henry and his 
barons appealed to him to arbitrate between them. Though 
unfortunately they did not abide by his decision, this was a 
signal testimony to the esteem in which he was held. But the 
Treaty of Paris (May 1258), in which an attempt was made to 
bring to an end the long rivalry of the two countries over 
the English King's Angevin possessions, proved to be nothing 
but a covenant of truce. It was soon set aside by Ivouis' 
successors. 

The resolution which Louis exhibited in dealing with his 
refractory vassals was shown again in his relations with the 
Emperor and the Pope. In this case his independence was 
the more remarkable because he believed in the Empire as a 
divine institution, while his extreme piety naturally inspired 
a filial attitude toward the Papacy. In the bitter struggle 
which for some years Frederick II carried on, first with 
Gregory IX and then with Innocent IV, Louis so far as possible 
remained neutral. Frederick detained some French prelates 
on their way to a council which had been convoked in Rome. 
Very quietly but very firmly Louis insisted upon their imme- 
diate release. When the Pope freed the German princes and 
people from their oath of allegiance to the Emperor, Louis paid 
no attention to the edict. But when Frederick overran Italy 
and forced Innocent to fly for safety to Lyon, Louis interfered 
in Innocent's behalf. In his further relations with the Church 
he was careful to safeguard his royal prerogatives, his jealousy 
in regard to which was partly due to the fact that he regarded 
himself as invested, through the ceremony of consecration, with 

1 This transfer was made under the Treaty of Abbeville, 1259. 

121 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

spiritual and almost sacerdotal powers.^ He resisted the 
encroachments of the Holy See in national affairs, compelled 
the Church to recognize the State in a practical way by contri- 
buting to its support, curbed to some extent the judicial powers 
of the bishops, and brought a part of the clergy within the 
boundaries of the civil law.^ 

The Internal Policy of St Louis 

The King's sagacity and the practical character of his religion 
were, however, most clearly shown in the many reforms which 
he introduced in internal affairs. 

By an ordinance of uncertain date, though generally assigned 
to 1260, he forbade judicial duels or trials by combat through- 
out his dominions, substituting the appeal to witnesses for 
the appeal to arms. He renewed and confirmed his grand- 
father's quarantaine le roy, and later, in a decree of 1257, 
entirely prohibited private warfare, proclaiming that peace- 
breakers would be punished '' according to the exigencies of the 
case." His desire for peace led him even to condemn tourna- 
ments, which often ended in bloody encounters, and at best 
did much to inflame the martial spirit. In all these cases, it 
should be remarked, he acted as a devout son of the Church, 
for his object was to enforce by secular authority what had 
already been promulgated by canon law. He did all that he 
could according to his lights for the protection of industry and 
commerce, and if in regard to these matters he did not always 
act wisely, his good intentions are beyond dispute. He also 
sought to bring something like order into the financial chaos 
of the realm.' More than eighty of his nobles still enjoyed the 
privilege of coining their own money, and the money of one 
province was not accepted in any other. lyouis fixed a standard 
of value for his own currency, and enacted that while such 

^ It is at this point alone that Catholic writers have any fault to find with 
him. See, e.g., Sepet's St Louis (English translation), p. 161 and passim, 
and Father Tyrrell's preface to this volume, 

2 It should, however, be noted that the Pragmatic Sanction attributed to 
Louis, and long regarded as the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican 
Church, is now dismissed as a forgery of the fifteenth century. 

122 



LOUIS IX 

currency should be the only legal tender within the royal 
domains, it should pass on a par with that of all his vassals 
in the territories of the vassals themselves. This was the 
beginning of a national currency, and, as such, a further step 
toward national unity. 

It was, however, to the administration of his realm that he 
gave his most careful thought. He reorganized the office of 
hailli, established by Philippe-Auguste, and to bring it into 
closer relations with the Crown he revived the Carlovingian 
practice of sending out missi dGminici, now called enquesteurs, 
or visitants, whose duty it was to report to him on all the 
affairs of the different bailiwicks. He endeavoured, moreover, 
by many regulations to ensure honesty and efficiency in his 
officers.^ At the same time he greatly strengthened the 
judicial authority of the Crown. This he did in two ways. 
In the first place he forced the nobles to accept the principle 
of appeal from their own courts directly to himself. In the 
second place he insisted that in any case which involved the 
interest of the King or of the realm at large the right of judg- 
ment should lie with him and with him alone. These ' royal 
cases,' as they were called, proved of great influence in under- 
mining the judicial prerogatives of the nobility, since, in the 
absence of any exact definition of the term, * royal cases ' 
multiplied so fast that before long every question of import- 
ance, civil, criminal, ecclesiastical, was included in the category. 
This practical assertion of the King's judicial supremacy v/as 
in part, of course, the concomitant of the gradual changes 
which were taking place in feudal society. The revived study 
of Roman law was, however, a factor of note. Students of 
Roman law were already busy engrafting royal authority upon 

^ As the Queen's Confessor records : "In that the blessed King wished 
that all his baillis and prevots should never do any injury or wrong to the 
people of his land, either in judging badly, or in unjustly taking away their 
goods, therefore he was accustomed to despatch certain enquesteurs, minor 
friars and preachers, laymen, or even knights, and to give them power, that 
if they found among the said baillis anything wickedly taken away from any 
person whatsoever, they should instantly restore it, and, in addition, that 
they should dismiss from their of&ces all who were worthy of being dismissed." 

123 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the imperial principle. According to their theory, the king 
was the source of all justice, while such powers as his vassals 
enjoyed were delegated powers only. These abstractions of 
the doctors did something even now, and were destined to do 
more later, to strengthen the King's hands. 

lyouis* personal part in the administration of justice is 

vividly described in a famous passage from the pen of his 

friend and biographer, Jean de Joinville.^ " The King so 

arranged matters that Monseigneur de Nesle and the good 

Count of Soissons, and we others who were with him, when 

we had heard Mass, should go and hear the pleadings at the 

gate, now called the Court of Requests. And when he 

came out of church he sent for us, and sat down at the 

foot of the bed, and caused us to be seated round him, and 

he asked if there were any pleaders to dismiss who could 

not be dismissed without him. And we gave their names, 

and he ordered them to be fetched, and he asked of them : 

* Why do you not take that which your people offer ? ' And 

they^ said : * Sire, it is because they offer so little.' And he 

spake thus : ' You ought to take what they are willing to 

offer.' And the holy man endeavoured thus with all his 

might to set them in the right and reasonable way." And 

again : "It often happened that in summer he went after 

Mass to sit in the wood of Vincennes, and leaned his back against 

an oak-tree, and bade us sit round him ; and all those who 

had business came to speak to him, not hindered by the guards 

or by other people. And then he would ask with his own 

mouth : ' Is any one here who has a cause ? ' And those 

who had a cause stood up. And then he said : ' Be silent, all 

of you, that we may take one after the other.' And then he 

would call Monseigneur Peter of Fontaines and Monseigneur 

Geoffrey of Villette, and would say to one of them : * Decide 

this cause for me.' And when he found anything to correct 

1 Jean, Sieur de Joinville, in Champagne, was born about 1224 and died in 
13 1 7. He was a close follower and confidential friend of the King, whom 
he accompanied on his first Crusade. He wrote his fascinating Histoire de 
St Louis when he was upward of eighty. 

124 ^ 







< 
U 

o 

w 

M 
H-( 

u 

W 
o 



o 



X 



P 
o 



LOUIS IX 

in the words of those who spoke for others, he himself spoke the 
correction with his own mouth. Sometimes in summer I have 
seen him come into his garden in Paris to decide causes, wearing a 
camlet tunic, a surcoat of wool without sleeves, a mantle of black 
taffety round his neck, his hair well combed and flowing, a cap 
made of the feathers of a white peacock [swan] on his head. And 
he would have carpets spread that we might sit round him, and 
all the people who brought causes before him stood up in his 
presence. And then he would dismiss them after the manner 
of which I have told you in the wood of Vincennes." 

His high conception of justice is shown in the instructions 
which he gave to his son : *' Dear son, if you come to reign, 
do that which befits a king ; that is, be so just as to deviate 
in nothing from justice, whatever befall you. If a poor man 
goes to law with a rich, support the poor rather than the rich 
till you know the truth, and when the truth is known, do that 
which is just." 

While, however, according to I^ouis' conception of kingship, 
it was fitting that the king himself should act as supreme judge, 
the delegation of his sovereign powers to trained represen- 
tatives was of course a practical necessity. The definite 
establishment, under the name of the Parliament of Paris, of a 
supreme court of justice was, indeed, one of the most notable 
events of his reign. This Parliament was the chief judicial 
portion of the King's Council. Introducing the important 
principle of the subdivision of functions among his advisers, 
lyouis assigned to a second portion of such Council the charge 
of the Treasury, while a third remained his advisory body, or 
Council proper in the strict acceptation of the term. 

While the King's power was thus continuing to grow, the 
communes, on the contrary, were beginning to lose ground. 
Their character had for some time been fast changing for the 
worse. The vicious influences of feudalism had already deeply 
affected them. They had taken to waging wars against one 
another, and in these wars they showed themselves as reckless 
in regard to the lives and property of the peasantry of the 
neighbouring districts as the great barons themselves. They 

125 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

were often torn by internal disputes, and especially by the 
feuds of rich and poor. The former with increasing wealth 
had grown proud and tyrannous ; the latter were becoming 
more and more discontented and rebellious ; while all chances 
of good government were too often wrecked by the venality 
of the magistrature. ]V0smanagement had, moreover, in many 
cases brought the finances of the towns into almost hopeless 
confusion. For all these reasons the King's policy was directed 
toward the curtailment of the power of the towns as well as 
of that of the feudal nobility. In the interests of national 
stability the officers of the Treasury repeatedly interfered in 
the administration of communal finances, and in many instances 
punished a bankrupt city by declaring its charter to be void. 
On other grounds as well charters were often withdrawn, and 
with them, of course, much of the independence which the 
towns in. question had formerly enjoyed. In these cases the 
towns passed directly under the rule of the King, who exercised 
a controlling power even over their municipal elections and 
officers. This transformation of the free towns into ' royal 
towns,' as they were called, went on with great rapidity under 
St lyouis and his immediate successors, and it is to be inter- 
preted as one aspect of the great general movement for the 
centralization of power. By the end of the fourteenth century all 
the free communes had practically disappeared, their preroga- 
tives having been absorbed in those of the Crown. This is an 
important fact, for it meant the virtual destruction in a political 
sense of that middle class which in England was to prevent 
the consolidation of power in the hands either of king or of 
nobles. This middle class having been rendered impotent, the 
way was clear for the steady growth of royalty into absolutism. 

Louis' First Crusade 

Profoundly interested as he was in the internal welfare of 
his realm, Louis none the less conceived it to be part of his 
religious duty to spend a number of years in absence from it. 
Unfortunately for himself and for France, he heard and answered 
the call of the Bast. 
126 1 



LOUIS IX 

Jerusalem had again fallen into the hands of the infidels, 
and at the thirteenth Oecumenical Council, held at lyyon in 
1245, Innocent IV had called upon the Christian nations to 
undertake once more the rescue of the Sacred City. The appeal 
had little effect in Europe generally. But I^ouis at once 
responded to it. Already while lying seriously ill the previous 
year he had made a vow that if God granted him recovery 
he would conduct another Crusade to the Holy I^and. This 
vow, in spite of the vigorous opposition of the Queen-Mother 
and his advisers, he now determined to fulfil. Having appointed 
'Blanche as regent, he left Paris barefoot, in his pilgrim habit, 
amid an immense concourse of people ; sailed from Aigues- 
Mortes in the summer of 1248 ; and after a voyage of twenty 
days reached Cyprus, where for two years he had been carefully 
laying up vast stores of provisions. Despite his own great 
anxiety to push forward he had to wait there for his barons 
and their reinforcements. It had been determined to attack 
Islamism in its great stronghold in Egypt, and I^ouis with an 
army of 50,000 men in 1800 vessels of all shapes and sizes 
accordingly made directly for Damietta, at one of the mouths 
of the Nile. There he effected a landing on June 7, 1249, 
defeated the Saracens in a short, sharp engagement and with 
the loss of only one man, and took the city without striking 
another blow. This easy victory was due to the panic which 
had seized the enemy. Unfortunately it was followed by a 
long delay, now inexplicable, during which the enemy had 
ample time to recover strength and courage, while the Christian 
army was demoralized by idleness and vice. At last in the 
summer of 1250 the inland march began, the aim being the 
occupation of Cairo and Mansurah. Hard fighting, severe 
losses, and the ravages of disease thinned out and wore down 
lyouis' forces, and he was presently compelled to retreat. 
Disaster followed disaster, and in the end he himself and the 
entire remnant of his host were captured and taken to Man- 
surah. He purchased freedom for himself and his followers 
at the price of 80,000 gold pieces and the surrender of Damietta ; 
after wliich, his religious enthusiasm still undamped, instead of 

127 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

returning to France he went on into Syria. There he spent 
nearly four years in fruitless efforts to establish peace among 
the^jarring factions of the Christians themselves, in restoring 
fortresses, and in making plans and again plans for the relief 
of Jerusalem. He also appealed for help to Europe, and even 
sought to secure the support of the English King by offering 
to cede Normandy and Poitou in return for it. lyittle heed, 
however, was paid to his earnest solicitations ; and in 1254 
the news of the Queen-Mother's death compelled him to return 
to France. He had accomplished nothing. But the attempt 
gave him a certain spiritual satisfaction, and, as he was soon 
to testify, his Crusading zeal was unabated. 

One event which occurred during his absence was so closely 
connected with it that it may find mention here, though in 
fact its social significance was far broader than such connexion 
would lead us to suppose. This was the Pastoureaux revolt, 
or rising of the poor peasantry, in 125 1. Their leader was a 
strange man, half fanatic, half adventurer, whose real name 
remains unknown, but who was commonly called ' the Master 
of Hungary.' He went through the north of France declaring 
that it was the will of the Blessed Virgin, as revealed to him 
in a vision, that the pastoureaux, or shepherds, should set forth 
to rescue the King. The crowds gathered fast and reached 
Paris many thousands strong. Then they broke through all 
restraint and, streaming southward, abandoned themselves to 
all kinds of violence. Finally the Master was killed by a butcher 
who clove his head with a hatchet, and his following dispersed 
like smoke. .As this curious outburst of mob fury is in part 
at least to be traced to the ever-growing evils of ecclesiastical 
despotism, it has a certain importance as a sign of popular 
unrest. 

Louis' Second Crusade 

lyouis' first Crusade had been disastrous. His second was 
destined to prove fatal. 

While busily engaged with his internal reforms he had not 
been unmindful of the critical condition of things in the East, 
128 » 



LOUIS IX 

and lie was deeply moved by the news which reached him, 
now of the unchecked ravages of Tartar hordes in Egypt, 
Syria, and Palestine, now of the massacre of believers, now 
of the destruction of the church at Nazareth. The determina- 
tion to which he came in 1266 to lead another expedition of 
th« Cross filled his counsellors with consternation and caused 
profound dissatisfaction among his people. He was, indeed, 
wholly unfit for the labours and fatigues which he had resolved 
to undertake, for his physical weakness was such that, as 
Joinville records, he could not sit on a horse and could scarcely 
bear the motion of a vehicle. Yet his indomitable spirit rose 
superior to all infirmities, and after four years of preparation 
he set out on the journey from which he was never to return. 
His brother, Charles of Anjou, now King of Sicily, had per- 
suaded him to strike first at Tunis. In due course that city 
was besieged. But the extreme heat of the season, the want 
of fresh food and pure water, and the frightful sandstorms 
which swept the country played havoc with his troops. A 
deadly plague broke out in the camp, and daily carried off 
appalling numbers of men. I^ouis himself was soon attacked 
by it ; his enfeebled state made him an easy victim, and he 
succumbed on August 25, 1270, at the age of fifty-five, thus 
crowning his life with martyrdom. The collapse of his enter- 
prise marks the real end of the Crusades. 

The Character of St Louis 

St lyouis so completely sums up the religious and chival- 
rous ideals of the Middle Ages that a brief analysis of his 
character is desirable. 

Tall and well built, with the bright eyes, the fair complexion, 
and much of the personal beauty of the Hainault family, to 
which his grandmother Isabelle belonged, lyouis was, in earlier 
life at least, a fine and imposing man. There was something 
peculiarly .angelic, observers noted, about the expression of 
his face. Notwithstanding his humility, the kingly dignity of 
his carriage was unmistakable, and while his manners were 
marked by serenity and cheerfulness, even those who were 

I 129 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

in most intimate relationship with him were aware that he 
had his reserves. The central interest and the one controlling 
power in his life was, of course, religion. The influence of 
this pervaded all his activities and shaped his conduct down 
to its most trivial details. He paid punctilious attention to 
the devotional exercises which had their appointed places in 
each day's scheme of work ; and Masses, horae, and Bible 
readings were never interrupted even by the exigencies of his 
campaigns, since, as a contemporary tells us, *' while he rode, 
his clerks on horseback chanted the canonical hours as if they 
were in church." His own share in such exercises was marked 
by the utmost intensity of spiritual ardour ; when, for example, 
in the celebration of the Eucharist he went to the altar, it was 
not walking, but on his knees, and '' he received the true 
body of Jesus Christ " with " many sighs and groans." ^ He 
not only attended with scrupulous exactitude all the services, 
ordinary and extraordinary, of the calendar, but was also 
passionately given to the practice of private prayer and medi- 
tation. His interest in the more formal aspects of religion 
was equally great ; he loved pious conversation and discussions 
of the subtle points of doctrine, and sermons and Scriptural 
expositions were among the chief pleasures of his life. Nor 
was his piety a matter of personal emotion and consolation 
only. It had a practical side, which was highly characteristic 
of the Middle Ages, in the attention which he constantly gave 
to the poor and the sick ; concerning which the chroniclers 
have much to record which is often strange and sometimes 
quite repulsive to modern taste. One illustration, which rests 
on the authority of Queen Marguerite's Confessor, will serve to 
show the frequent combination of the touching and the 
grotesque in those works of charity which the age held in 
such high esteem. One Good Friday, when he was making 
his customary pilgrimage to the neighbouring churches (bare- 
footed, or rather, after his wont on such occasions, wearing 
shoes without soles, so that the flesh might not be seen though 
the naked feet touched the ground), he met a leper walking 

1 Galfrid de Beaulieu, Vie de St Louis. 
130 



LOUIS IX 

on the other side of a narrow street, and, in accordance with 
the law, ringing his bell to warn all chance comers to get out 
of his way. " Then the King, thus warned, perceived him, and 
went toward him, for this purpose setting his feet in the cold 
muddy waters which ran in the middle of the street ; he joined 
the leper, gave alms to him, and kissed his hand," 

It is not surprising that such devotional fervour led lyouis 
to asceticism. His temperament was indeed of the cheerful 
kind ; he loved hunting, dogs, horses, and falcons ; he was 
fond of innocent gaiety, though he frowned on secular romances 
and music, and, it is expressly recorded, never permitted him- 
self to laugh on Friday. Yet ascetic practice was part of 
his system. He used fasting and abstinence ; was strongly 
attached to the mortification of the hair shirt till on the ground 
of health and kingly duty he was persuaded by his spiritual 
father to abandon it ; and for many years he had himself 
scourged every Friday by his confessor. Such practices he 
also recommended to those who were nearest to him ; for 
example, he sent a gift of disciplinary scourges to his daughter 
the Queen of Navarre, begging that she would scourge herself 
at times " for her own sins and for the sins of her poor father." 
Sometimes his austerities were childishly trivial ; as when, 
because he did not like beer, he made it his drink during I^ent. 
More generally he renounced all luxury in eating, drinking, 
and dress for himself as an individual ; although, believing 
that these things had a proper place and purpose in the sphere 
of kingship (of the dignity of which he thought much), he 
encouraged them officially and in his royal surroundings. 

His excessive devotion and minute attention to the exercises 
of piety were severely criticized by some of his great nobles, 
who held that they were more fitting for a monk than for a 
king. This view seems to have been recognized by I/Ouis 
himself, who, it is said, at one time entertained the idea of 
abdicating in favour of his son and joining one of the mendicant 
orders. Yet it is to mistake his character entirely to regard 
him as a weak sentimentalist. He was on the contrary a 
thoroughly virile man. There was no suggestion of feebleness 

131 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

or vacillation in his management of public affairs, into which 
he carried conspicuous intelligence and firmness. He asserted 
himself with much effect against his powerful vassals, and held 
his own in his conflicts with Emperor and Pope. He was a 
good fighter, and his coolness and heroism in battle were, like 
his quiet courage in critical emergencies, remarkable. When 
it seemed to him that the occasion required it, he could be 
stern and inflexible even (as we should deem it) to cruelty ; 
as when, despite the protestations of his priests and the prayers 
of the ladies of his Court, including the Queen, he confirmed 
the sentence against a faithless woman who had compassed 
the death of her husband, and so sent her to be publicli^ burned 
at the stake. 

What perhaps impresses us most in his character is his fine 
religious sense of the duties of kingship and the entire unselfish- 
ness with which he sought to discharge them. While lying 
as 'he thought at the point of death in 1258, he said to his 
son lyouis (who himself died shortly after) : ** Fair son, I pray 
you ^o make the people of your kingdom love you, for in sooth 
I would rather that a Scotsman came from Scotland to govern 
the people of this kingdom well than that you should govern 
them ill in the sight of all." No one can deny that, according 
to his lights, lyouis sought to live up to his own ideal. He 
wins our admiration too by the way in which, in the true 
spirit of Christianity, he tried always to make peace even 
between his enemies, instead of following the usual practice 
of the rulers of his time, and fostering their contentions in 
order to take advantage of them. 

In all these respects lyouis far transcended the average 
working morality of his century. It is hardly necessary to 
add that at many other points he was still essentially a man 
of that century. We see this very clearly in the ferocity of 
his edicts against blasphemers and in his brutal treatment 
of Jews and heretics. When we find even the good St lyouis 
formally declaring that if a layman hears the Christian faith 
ill spoken of by a Jew he should not try to answer him with 
argument, but should thrust his sword into the body of the 
132 * 



LOUIS IX 

miscreant " as far as it will go," we realize with painful vivid- 
ness how utterly impossible it is for even the best of men to 
escape from some of the worst prejudices of their age. 

We have also, of course, to recognize that there is much in 
lyouis' character to remind us of the stiff and pinched ideal of 
humanity which medieval Christianity developed as its highest 
type. Yet, whatever its limitations, its nobility, purity, and 
greatness remain conspicuous and engaging. It has been said 
that no man could ever carry virtue farther than this pious 
thirteenth-century king ; and the significance of the eulogy 
may be gauged by the fact that the eulogist was none other 
than Voltaire. 



133 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

T will be convenient to pause at this point' in our narrative 
to glance at the intellectual condition of France during the ' 
period of which St Louis is the central figure. Our habit 
of dividing history sharply into epochs leads us too often 
to think of the Renaissance as a movement which (so far as 
France is concerned) began suddenly toward the end of the 
fifteenth centur3^ This common view is entirely erroneous. 
Premonitions of the great revival may be detected amid the 
deepest darkness of the Middle Ages, and in increasing strength 
and variety from the close of the eleventh century onward, 
while the thirteenth century may fairly be described as the 
time of its early spring. It is true that, for reasons which will 
become apparent in the sequel, this season of progress was 
followed by a long period of decline : the fulfilment of its 
promise being, in fact, postponed for nearly two hundred years. 
Its own achievements none the less make it extremely important 
as a stage in the history of the French people. 

Many influences were already at work creating a strong 
current of new intellectual life. The development of com- 
merce, by establishing wider and more varied relations between 
man and man and country and country, was doing much to 
break down the narrow boundaries within which thought and 
sympathy had long been confined. The corresponding growth 
of the towns at the same time favoured the evolution of a 
type of character and a range of ideas radically unlike those 
which were fostered in the strongholds of medievalism — the 
cloister and the castle ; for the secular interests and the civic 
demands of these busy centres of practical activity were 
inevitably productive of a spirit at once positive, independent, 



SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

progressive, and fundamentally hostile both to sacerdotalism 
and to the principles of feudalism. Conditions thus emerged 
which greatly encouraged freedom of thought, the expansion 
of the lay mind, and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Contact with 
Arabian culture in Spain, and, through the Crusades, with the 
Far Bast, also proved a potent force, directly and indirectly, 
in the intellectual awakening of the Western world ; while 
the revived study of the literature of classical antiquity, 
though its full influence was not felt till much later, tended 
from the first to sap the foundations of medievalism, in life 
and thought. 

Though universities now existed in many other French 
cities, that of Paris was indisputably the centre of the intel- 
lectual life of the country. The schools of the capital— of 
Notre-Dame, of Sainte-Genevieve, of Saint- Victor, and others 
of only less note — had long been famous throughout Europe ; 
but the incorporation of these separate schools into a univer- 
sity, with its four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and 
art, belongs to the early part of the thirteenth century. Fifty 
years later an important new chapter in the history of the 
institution was opened with the inauguration of the college 
system. The vast influx of students made it increasingly 
difficult to provide adequate accommodation for them ; they 
were fleeced by unscrupulous lodging-house keepers ; and at 
the same time they suffered much in morals from the fact that 
their dispersion about the city rendered effective control and 
discipline impossible. An attempt was made to correct these 
evils by the foundation of cheap and well-regulated hospitia, 
or hostels. But these were boarding-places only, and were 
in no way connected with the academic organization itself. 
The happy idea of making a student's place of residence the 
place also of his tuition then occurred to Robert de Sorbon, 
St lyouis' chaplain and confessor, who, with the King's 
consent, established in 1253 the first of the colleges of the 
University of Paris, the famous Sorbonne. This, which was 
devoted exclusively to the study of theology, is the only 
college which dates from the thirteenth century. By the 

13s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

middle of the following century, however, at least twenty-five 
other colleges, small and great, were in existence ; by the end 
of it the number had risen to forty. In general, the condition 
of these colleges was deplorable ; the students were often so 
poor that they had to live by begging ; bad food, dirt, and 
neglect of the elementary principles of sanitation made dis- 
eases of the most loathsome kinds prevalent among them ; 
and they were frequently guilty of rioting, street fighting, 
and the grossest debaucheries. But the fame of the university 
was at this period firmly established, and the lectures of some 
of the greatest of European scholars who from time to time 
taught there gave it a glory and an influence be3^ond any 
other educational institution. The French Abelard, the Italian 
Peter lyombard and Thomas Aquinas, the Swabian Albertus 
Magnus, the English Roger Bacon, and the Scotch (or Irish) 
Duns Scotus may be mentioned among the most celebrated of 
the great doctors who helped, in contemporary phrase, to 
make Paris a second Athens. 

It is to the University of Paris, then, that we have to turn 
if we would learn something of the scholarship and the higher 
intellectual activities of France during the later Middle Ages ; 
and here the facts which come to light are such as to impress 
us at first with the tragic disparity between the energies put 
forth and the value of the results accomplished. The best 
thought of the time was expended upon the dogmas of medieval 
theology (for a full mastery of which a course of fourteen years 
of rigorous study was prescribed) and upon the subtleties of 
that kind of philosophy which is called scholasticism ; the 
great aim of which was not the independent search after 
truth, but the re-establishment by the processes of reason of 
the truth already authoritatively given by revelation. The 
medieval philosopher was not a scientist ; he cared nothing 
for the facts of external nature ; he had neither telescope nor 
microscope nor chemical apparatus nor battery nor museum 
to help him ; and if, as a recent writer has said, deprivation 
of these aids from without only made him think the harder,^ 

* Rickaby, Scholasticism, p. 9. 
136 




14. The Cathedra!,, x\mieNvS 



136 



SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

it happened with him as it happens with every thinker whose 
mind is divorced from reaHty — ^he lost himself amid barren 
speculations and meaningless trivialities. As he worked with- 
out any sound material to work upon, his thought necessarily 
lacked substance ; and as a result (to adopt the quaint com- 
parison of old Fuller), like a person living in a crowded street, 
he ran his house up high because he had so little ground to 
build upon. Yet puerile and pedantic as his subjects and 
methods now seem to us to have been, their importance from 
an historical point of view must still be recognized. In the 
philosophizing of the schools we may see the mind beginning 
to strike out for itself amid all the encumbrances of ignorance 
and tradition ; and if the discussions of rival theorists about 
nominalism and realism almost invariably degenerated into 
logic-chopping and hair-splitting of the most futile sort, they 
still provided an outlet for the awakening spirit of intellectual 
adventure, while it was through them that the claims of 
reason and inquiry were first set forth. This is true even in 
respect of those philosophers in whom the purely medieval 
temper is most apparent, like Peter I^ombard (i 100-60), Bishop 
of Paris, and — most famous of all the theologians of the Middle 
Ages — Thomas Aquinas (? 1226-74). It is even more con- 
spicuously true in respect of the few really independent thinkers 
here and there who sought to emancipate themselves to some 
extent from the intellectual trammels of their time. Such a 
one in particular was the great Pierre Abelard (1079-1142), 
who lectured at Paris, it is said, to five thousand pupils, and 
who, when the shame of public scandal forced him to leave 
the capital, was followed into his retreat near Troyes by 
multitudes of ardent disciples. His powerful advocacy of the 
rights of reason and his insistence upon the open mind as 
the only condition for the pursuit of truth made him a marked 
man, and, as the Church held, a very dangerous one, in his 
generation. Yet Abelard still worked along the lines of purely 
metaphysical inquiry, and, radical as he was in specific doctrine, 
his place is therefore among the typical schoolmen. Hence 
lessj importance really attaches to his labours than to the 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

halting efforts of those rare students of nature who, turning 
from the abstractions of formal logic and system-building to 
the world about them, gave the first impulse toward modern 
methods of scientific research. Chief among these was the 
great contemporary of St l/ouis and Thomas Aquinas, Roger 
Bacon, who more than any other man of his age sought to 
bring the mind back to reality, and whose significance as 
a pioneer of those inductive principles which we commonly 
associate with his more famous namesake and successor is now 
fully recognized by every historian of thought. Bacon's role 
was, of course, European ; but he enters specially into our 
story because he was for a time connected with the University 
of Paris, and suffered ten years' imprisonment in the French 
capital as a heretic and servant of the devil. 

The Development of Literature 

Meanwhile, outside the field of theology and scholastic 
philosophy the revival of intellectual interests was apparent 
in the development of general literature. This development 
followed many lines. 

South of the I^oire, through the greater part of that fertile 
region which we know as „ Provence, lyrical poetry flourished 
with extraordinary vigour from about the middle of the twelfth 
century for upward of a hundred years. This poetry was 
essentially aristocratic and chivalrous in character. The 
troubadours, as the Proven9al poets were called, formed a 
well-recognized caste, and whether they themselves belonged 
(as was often the case) to the nobility or sprang from a humbler 
stock, they were entirely court poets, who depended upon 
princely favour and sought inspiration and audience among 
the great knights and ladies of the land ; among their principal 
patrons being the Counts of Provence and of Toulouse. Their 
poetry was therefore almost wholly a poetry of war, gallantry, 
the subtleties of passion, and the metaphysics of love ; it had 
little about it that was popular either in theme or in style ; 
and while it was undoubtedly marked by much beauty of 
language and versification, it was artificial in manner and 

138 



SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

strained and conventional in feeling. The crusade against 
the Albigenses brought the Golden Age of Provencal literature 
to an abrupt and tragic close, and though many efforts were 
later made to revive the old enthusiasm for '' the gay science " 
of song, the real poetic glory of the south had now departed 
for ever. Flying before the combined forces of military 
brutality and ecclesiastical fanaticism, many of the troubadours 
found refuge at the little Italian courts ; and thus they came 
to exercise a considerable influence on Italian poetry — even 
on that of Dante and Petrarch. 

In the north during the same period there was also lyrical 
poetry in abundance, and most of this, like the poetry of the 
Provengal singers, was inspired by the two great interests of 
the age of chivalry — fighting and love. Some of these northern 
poets belonged to the highest ranks of feudal society, like 
Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, who 
wrote verse that was good enough to earn the praise of Dante. 
Others were professional minstrels, like Colin Muset of Cham- 
pagnef who spent his life in wandering from castle to castle, 
repaying hospitality with song, and Blondel de Nesle, who is 
famous for his connexion with the story of Richard I's captivity, 
and Philippe de Nanteuil, who went to Egypt with the Sixth 
Crusade, and Bodel, who followed St lyouis to the Holy 
lyand. But one important difference between these trouveres 
and the troubadours of the south is to be noted in the fact that 
while the latter were almost exclusively lyrists, the former 
showed from the first a strong bias toward story-telling. The 
fondness for verse-narrative, which had long been exhibited 
in the immense chansons de gestes, or tales of the exploits of 
popular heroes, like Alexander the Great, Arthur, and Charle- 
magne, began as time went on to express itself in somewhat 
different forms, and in some of the innumerable romans d'aven- 
tures of the thirteenth century we may perceive a tendency 
toward a freer and more varied treatment of life and character. 
But the very flower of medieval romance in France is the 
exquisite cantefable (or story told in a mixture of verse and 
prose) entitled Aucassin et Nicolette, which in the delicacy of 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

its sentiment and its simple charm remains a little masterpiece 
of its kind. 

For the most completely representative French poem of 
the Middle Ages, however, we have to turn to the celebrated 
Roman de la Rose, the translating of which gave our own 
Chaucer his real introduction to the practice of verse. This 
work is in two parts, and it is a special feature of its interest 
that these two parts are strikingly different in matter and 
tone. The first, which is the production bf Guillaume de 
lyorris (about 1225), is a discourse in which the whole art of 
love is unfolded (" oti Tart d'amors est tote enclose "), and its 
mysticism, scholastic subtlety, chivalrous idealism, and elabo- 
rately wrought allegory combine to make it typical of one side 
of the taste and culture of the time. Another, and contrasted, 
side is presented in the second part, added by Jean de Meung 
some fifty years later (perhaps about 1280). Though the 
allegorical method is preserved, the whole spirit of the poem 
is changed. Guillaume de lyorris' pretty fancies, philosophical 
abstractions, and fine-spun disquisitions on love and kindred 
topics now disappear, to make way for a vigorous satire on 
some of the political and ecclesiastical abuses of contemporary 
society. The new poet is rough and often coarse ; he is 
humorous, irreverent, and often astonishingly sceptical ; in 
his reaction against the ascetic restraints of clerical ethics he 
descends at times to open profligacy. Realistic descriptions 
and classical allusions alike abound in his work ; while his 
substitution of a cynical treatment of women and love for the 
conventional idealism of his predecessor is especially note- 
worthy. Taking the two divisions together, we may therefore 
say that the Roman de la Rose both epitomizes the Middle Ages 
and marks the beginning of their end. 

Nor is Jean de Meung's work by any means the only expres- 
sion in medieval French literature of the movement toward 
realism, of the growth of the popular element, and of the 
spread of that free, vivacious, often mocking and sometimes 
mutinous spirit which French writers call the esprit gaiilois. 
Side by side with the courtly lyrics and romances in which 
140 



SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

chivalrous themes were developed and chivalrous sentiments 
expressed for the delectation of the aristocratic few, other 
kinds of literature now began to evolve, reflecting the life and 
humours of the bourgeoisie and lower classes and giving voice 
to their restlessness and discontent. In the fabliaux, or short 
stories and anecdotes in verse, which reached their perfection 
in the thirteenth century, we have a native product of the 
popular genius working independently of court and schools, 
and the well-marked realism and racy satire of these smack 
unmistakably of the soil from which they sprang. In the 
topical verse of the bourgeois trouvdre Rutebeuf (c. 1230-c. 1280) , 
again, we are equally aware that we are passing out of the 
bounds of courtly society into a world of entirely different 
interests and ideas. But nowhere is the anti-feudal and anti- 
chivalrous spirit in thirteenth-century literature so pronounced 
as in the famous beast-epic the Roman de Renart, which is, 
at bottom, a parody of the aristocratic romance of love and 
knighthood. With the numerous problems connected with 
the genesis and transformations of this extraordinary work 
we are not here concerned. We have only to note that in 
its mocking tone, its unabashed cynicism, and its incidental 
pungent satire upon ideals and sentiments which were still 
traditional in aristocratic circles it everywhere reminds us 
that the old order of society is fast falling into decay. ^ 

The drama of the period now in question is no less significant 
than its other kinds of literature of the changes which were 
coming over its temper and aims. The religious drama, which 
emerged from the liturgy and commenced a separate existence 
in France (its birthplace) toward the end of the eleventh 
century, was flourishing in full vigour during the thirteenth, 
and plays representing scenes from the Bible and the lives 
of the saints were periodically performed before immense 
crowds on scaffolds erected in streets and squares in all the 
chief cities of the country. Yet w^hile these edifying spectacles 

1 The Roman de Renart gripped the popular imagination, and its amazing 
vogue is curiously shown by the fact that the name of its hero, though at 
first only a proper name, soon displaced goupil as the accepted word for ' fox.* 

141 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

bore ample testimony to the continued ardour of religious 
belief, they already began to hint in many ways at influences 
which were foreign to their original intentions. The tendency 
toward a more realistic handling of character, quite obvious 
here and there, and the encroachment of the comic element, 
mark in particular the growth of the secular spirit in what 
had formerly been the vehicle only for the popularizing of 
ecclesiastical dogma. This is even more clearty shown in the 
rise, under the name of jeu, of a rudimentary form of inde- 
pendent drama. The singular bit of dramatized autobiography 
Le Jeu d'Adam, or de la FeuiUee, in which Adam de la Halle 
(1240-88) put himself, his father, and various other citizens 
of his native town of Arras on the stage, is commonly regarded 
by historians of hterature as the first French comedy. In the 
same way, the same writer's pastoral Le Jeu de Robin et de 
Marion contains the germs of that thoroughly characteristic 
product of French dramatic genius, the light opera. 

The development of French prose for purposes other than 
those of imaginative literature must also be referred to as 
one of the most noteworthy achievements of this time. From 
a very early period it had been the practice in most of the 
great monasteries to keep regular records of important events, 
local and national, and this had led in many places to the 
digesting of such records into systematic chronicles. First 
written in ecclesiastical lyatin, some of these were presently 
turned into French, and a distinct movement toward the 
secularizing of history was thus initiated. But real history 
may be said to have begun in France with Geoifroi de Ville- 
hardouin's Conqueste de ConstantinoUe, a narrative of the 
Fourth Crusade, in which the author himself had taken a 
prominent part. In its graphic force, its breadth of view, 
and the clearness and sincerity of its narrative this was a new 
thing in French hterature. Villehardouin had several successors 
in the thirteenth century, but the only one who here calls for 
note is that Jean de Joinville who has already been mentioned 
as the companion and confidant' of St I^ouis. His biography 
of his royal friend, the work, as we have seen, of his extreme 
142 \ 




15- The SAINTE-CHAPKlyI<K 



142 



SPRING-TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 

old age, though entirely wanting in Villehardouin's vigour, is 
very charming by reason of its naivete and sympathy. 

The Development of Art 

Yet though literature thus expresses under various forms, 
all of which are therefore historically interesting, the activity 
of French genius during the central Capetian era, the great 
achievements of that genius are of course to be sought, not in 
lyric or romance or drama, but in church, castle, and hall. 
The glory of the Middle Ages was that style of architecture 
which is known popularly as Gothic,^ more correctly as Pointed ; 
and the pride of its paternity belongs to France. Arising by 
a series of transformations out of the Romanesque architecture 
of the tenth century, this new style made rapid progress toward 
perfection during the epoch of that general national revival 
which accompanied the consolidation of the kingdom and the 
growth of the royal supremacy. A passion for church-building 
now inspired the whole country, and, among countless minor 
monuments of religious enthusiasm and artistic power, those 
magnificent cathedrals began to rise which are among the 
lasting wonders of the world. These are, in the strictest sense 
of the term, great national creations, for the learning and the 
skill of France were at the disposal of those who reared them, 
and kings and bishops, nobles, clergy, and people, according 
to their respective measures, alike contributed to their erection. 
The second half of the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth 
centuries were the great age of French ecclesiastical architec- 
ture, and it was during this period that the cathedrals of Amiens, 
Beauvais, Soissons, Chartres, Noyon, lyaon, Reims, I^angres, 
and Bourges came into existence. Notre-Dame in Paris also 
belongs to the same epoch of marvellous activity, for it was 
begun in 1160 under l/ouis VII, and finished in 1235 under 
lyouis IX, and to this may be added the exquisite Sainte- 

^ ' Gothic ' has no real justification, and in fact carries with it etymologically 
sundry incorrect connotations ; but it is so firmly lodged in current speech 
that it would be absurd to refuse to use it. The French alternative term 
ogival is derived from the ' ogive,' or pointed arch. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Chapelle, built by St lyouis as a shrine for the relics which 
he brought back with him from the Holy I^and. 

Yet while these great religious buildings naturally occupy 
the first place in our admiration, it is a mistake to suppose 
that Gothic architecture was in essence an expressly religious 
type of art. Its adaptability to secular purposes was shown 
on the one hand in the great castles of the feudal nobility, 
on the other hand in the fine public edifices — the town-halls 
and the courts of justice — which grew up along with the churches 
in all the more important cities. The immense progress of 
civic architecture is particularly interesting because it serves 
to connect the history of Gothic art with the rise of the middle 
classes and the evolution of the towns. It should be added 
that though the arts in general were still in their infancy, the 
development of architecture gave a decided impulse to certain 
ancillary crafts, like those of stained-glass making and sculp- 
ture. The skill of the goldsmith was also encouraged by the 
spreading love of church decoration. The increasing use of 
tapestries in houses may also be mentioned as a sign of growth 
in domestic comfort and taste. 

Kven so brief a sketch as the foregoing will suffice to make 
good the opening statement of this chapter that the thirteenth 
century in France was an age of progress along many lines. 
The causes which combined to arrest that progress will become 
clear as our story proceeds. 



144 



CHAPTER IX 

PHILIPPE III ('LE HARDI') 

I27O-I285 

PHILIPPE IV CLE BEL') 

1285-1314 

SAINT IvOUIS was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, 
Philippe III, called, for no very obvious reason, ' le 
Hardi,' or 'the Bold/ Owing to a curious absence of 
contemporary records, our knowledge of his character and of 
the details of his reign is very slight. He appears, however, 
to have been a pious and well-meaning man of limited education 
and very mediocre intelligence. On the whole, he carried on 
his father's policy, though he revived the tournament and 
was far less stringent than lyouis had been in regard to judicial 
duels. The outstanding feature of his reign is the continued 
steady growth of the royal power. This was exemplified in 
various ways. By the acquisition of the county of Toulouse, 
with most of its subordinate territories, Philippe greatly 
strengthened his position in the south. He dealt severely 
with such nobles here and there as still disturbed the public 
peace, and crushed without difficulty a few small movements 
of revolt. The number of ' royal cases ' brought before the 
Parliament of Paris showed a yearly increase, and this meant 
the further weakening of the baronial courts. The King's 
authority was also asserted against the Church in the correction 
of an ecclesiastical abuse which was fast becoming a scandal, 
lyarge numbers of men took the tonsure, thus becoming clerics 
in name, and then, though they lived as laymen, carried on 
business as laymen, and as laymen married, they claimed as 
clergy all the privileges of clerical immunity in respect of 

K 145 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

civil law and taxation. Philippe destroyed such privileges 
and brought these pseudo-clerics under State control. He also 
made the Church contribute substantially to his exchequer 
by imposing a tax, equal to two or three years' rent of the 
same, on all the new property which it acquired. All this was 
a distinct advantage to civil government and helped the work 
of unification. In his choice of confidential advisers, too, 
Pliilippe made further inroads upon the prestige of the terri- 
torial nobility. It is generally said, though doubt is now thrown 
upon the statement, that he granted a patent of nobility to his 
steward Raoul, thus for the first time separating aristocracy 
from its old feudal basis in the land. It is certain that his 
favourites were men of middle rank. The most famous of 
these was one Pierre de la Broce, who had been his surgeon 
and valet de chambre, and by force of cleverness and ambition 
rose from this humble position to the highest place in the 
royal councils. His success stirred the hostility of the great 
nobles and of the King's second wife, Marie of Brabant ; fierce 
quatrels ensued, and charges of treason were brought against 
the favourite. The case is obscure and much mixed up with 
Court scandals, and to disentangle the rights and wrongs of 
it would require more space than can be afforded here. It is 
enough to say that in June 1278 I^a Broce perished on the 
gibbet of Montf aucon, that enormous structure of solid masonry 
on the confines of the Faubourg Saint-Martin on which it is said 
(such was the provision then made for wholesale executions) 
sixty persons could be hanged together. I^a Broce's successor 
in the King's- confidence was an abbot of Saint-Denis, whose 
influence was so strong that he was popularly regarded as the 
real master of France. 

Philippe's foreign policy was also directed toward the expan- 
sion of the royal authority. Henri le Gros, King of Navarre 
and Count of Champagne, had on his death left one child only, 
a daughter, Jeanne, who was still a minor, and her mother, 
Blanche of Artois, a daughter of Charles of Anjou (Philippe's 
uncle), undertook to rule in her name. The Kings of Aragon 
and Castile, however, laid claim to the throne. On this Blanche 
146 * 



PHILIPPE IV 

appealed to Philippe, who promptly affianced his second son 
(also Philippe) to Jeanne, and sent an army into Spain to 
secure her rights. The kingdom of Navarre and the county 
of Champagne were thus attached to the French Crown. A 
second interference in Spanish affairs was also prompted by 
family ambitions. By his despotism and cruelty Charles of 
Anjou had aroused the deadliest hatred of his Sicilian subjects. 
This hatred found vent in the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. 
The crown of Sicily was then offered to the King of Aragon. 
Resolved to keep it in his own family, Philippe invaded Aragon ; 
but the expedition was a failure, and he died at Perpignan 
on his way home. 

Philippe IV 

His son, Philippe IV, the husband of Jeanne of Navarre, 
now ascended the throne. He owed his popular surname of 
' le Bel ' to his great personal beauty, which won the admira- 
tion of all who saw him. This gives him a certain distinctness 
of outline against the background of his time. But of his 
character and mental and moral qualities we know even less 
than of his father's. It is even doubtful whether his per- 
sonality counted at all in the policy which was pursued in his 
name, for it would rather seem that he was in the main an 
instrument merely of his advisers. But his reign was in 
many respects one of the most important in the earlier history 
of his country. Under him France became more manifestly 
than ever before the foremost Power in Europe, while royalty 
took an immense further stride toward absolutism. 

The dominant factor in the shaping of these results was 
unquestionably the power of a new class of men — the legists, 
as they were called — who were devoted to the study of Roman 
law and sought to apply its principles to the administration 
of the kingdom. Under their influence the feudal conception 
of kingship began to give way to the imperial doctrine that 
the king's power is not only absolute, but also unique — a 
power differing in kind as well as in degree from that exercised 
by those beneath him. The anti-feudal tendencies of Capetian 

H7 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

rule received an enormous impetus by being thus formulated, 
exhibited as part of an organized philosophy of government, 
and backed by all the authority which Roman antiquity 
was now beginning to acquire. All the King's chief coun- 
sellors — such men, for example, as Knguerrand de Marigny, 
Guillaume de Nogaret, and Pierre X)ubois — ^belonged to this 
new Romanizing school. 

Philippe's Quarrel with Rome 

The inspiration of the imperial idea is clearly shown in 
Philippe's collision with Rome. 

The Papacy had emerged, demoralized it is true, but still 
triumphant, from its long and bitter struggle with the Kmperor, 
and Boniface VIII was now putting forth extravagant claims 
to universal sovereignty.' These claims Philippe resisted. 
The quarrel began with a bull in which Boniface forbade the 
clergy to pay any taxes whatsoever without the permission of 
the Holy See, and proclairned the excommunication of any 
ruler who levied taxes on Church property. Philippe retorted 
by prohibiting any money to be taken out of France into 
Italy, thus seriously crippling the Pope's income. Though he 
yielded for the moment and even sought peace with France, 
Boniface soon returned to the charge with a bull, Unam 
Sanctum, in which he asserted his temporal supremacy and 
threatened to depose Philippe. This action was resented by 
the legists, guided by whom Philippe replied that temporal 
power belonged to the temporal sovereign alone. The Pope 
tried to give effect to his threats by an edict of deposition and 
excommunication. Upon this Guillaume de Nogaret hastened 
into Italy, intrigued with various enemies of the Papacy, 
raised an army of adventurers, besieged the Pope in Anagni, 
seized him, and subjected him to all kinds of indignities. 
Shortly after this the old man died, his end doubtless hastened 
by anger and chagrin over his failure, and Philippe forced his 
successor, Benedict XI, to retract his claims. Then on Bene- 
dict's death he secured the election of a Frenchman, the 
Bishop of Bordeaux, who ascended the Chair as Clement V, 
148 * 




00 



O 



o 



PM 



VO 



PHILIPPE IV 

and in 1309 took up his residence at Avignon. This opened 
the period of ' Babylonish Captivity/ which lasted till 1377. 
and during which, established on French soil, the Papacy was 
largely the creature of the French king. The underlying sig- 
nificance of these events is clear. On the fall of the Empire 
the Pope sought to step into the Emperor's place as the acknow- 
ledged head of Europe. Philippe's resistance to his assertion 
of imperial rights was dictated by a determination to maintain 
the integrity and independence of the French monarchy. 

Two important incidents are connected with this long 
quarrel. The first of these was the suppression of the order 
of the Templars. This military-religious brotherhood, it will 
be remembered, owed its origin to the First Crusade. It 
had grown rapidly in wealth and power in many countries, 
and nowhere more than in France. Philippe's determination 
to destroy it was perhaps inspired by the fear that, like the 
Teutonic Knights in Germany, its members might set up a 
principality of their own. He had reason for hostility, too, 
in the fact that, owing to the religious foundations of their 
institution, they regarded themselves as subjects, not of the 
King, but of the Pope. But undoubtedly the real cause of 
his action is to be sought in his cupidity ; for they were 
immensely rich, while he was in desperate need of money. 
The weak and unscrupulous Pope connived in return for 
certain concessions on Philippe's part, and the policy of exter- 
mination was carried out with shocking cruelty. Taking 
advantage of the evil stories which were current about the 
immoral and blasphemous character of their secret rites, the 
King ordered the arrest of all their chiefs throughout the 
kingdom. Inhuman tortures wrung out of the wretched victims 
evidence enough to convict the whole brotherhood, and fifty- 
four Templars were roasted to death over slow fires in one day 
in Paris alone, while similar executions took place in all the 
principal provincial towns. At the Council of Vienne in 
13 12 the Pope himself formally pronounced the suppression 
of the order. But it was Philippe who mainly profited by it. 
He confiscated its great wealth very much as Henry VIII in 

149 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

England afterward confiscated the wealth of the suppressed 
monasteries. 

More important than this, however, is the second event 
referred to — ^the emergence of the Third Estate in the affairs 
of the nation. The king's Council had hitherto consisted of 
members of two estates only — ^the nobility and the clergy. 
In 1302, when his relations with the Pope were at their stage 
of greatest tension, Philippe summoned his Council for advice, 
and at the same time, being anxious to secure the support 
of all his people, he called upon the towns to send two or three 
of their burghers each to represent them at the meeting. He 
made the same demand again when in 1308 the question of the 
Templars came up for discussion, and again in 13 14, when 
the renewal of the war with Flanders made it necessary that 
he should at once raise a large sum of money. This entrance 
of the Third Estate into the political history of France (marking 
the^ beginning of the real States-General) was of course a 
consequence of the communal movement. But, interesting 
as it As, we must be careful not to exaggerate its importance. 
It is not to be compared in significance with the birth of the 
English Commons a little earlier, since the Third Estate in 
France, as we shall see, exercised no practical infiuence till the 
time of the Revolution. 

Philippe's Foreign Policy 

As Philippe's domestic policy was directed to the consolida- 
tion of the royal authority, so his foreign policy was largely 
guided by his desire for its security, and, where opportunity 
offered, for its expansion. 

His principal enemies were the King of England and the 
Count of Flanders, both of whom were ambitious to make 
themselves entirely independent of the French Crown. On 
the ground that Edward I was guilty of felony in refusing to 
appear in person before him to answer various charges, Philippe 
declared war and seized Guyenne. To strengthen his hand 
he formed an alliance with Scotland, then engaged in a fierce 
struggle with the English King. This was the beginning of 
150 % 



PHILIPPE IV 

the long union of France and Scotland against England as 
their common foe. Edward on his side found a ready supporter 
in the discontented Count of Flanders. By the Treaty of 
Montreuil in 1299 peace was at length established with England, 
Philippe betrothing his daughter Isabelle to the heir to the 
English crown (afterward Edward II) and giving her Guyenne 
as a dowry. This arrangement, as we shall learn later, was 
fraught with serious consequences. 

The peace with England was followed by the surrender of 
the Count of Flanders and the union of the county with the 
French Crown. But the extortions of the governor appointed 
over the province soon led to the revolt of nearly the whole 
Flemish people. A French army was despatched to quell 
the disturbance, and in the battle of Courtrai (1302) was almost 
wiped out by the militia of the Flemish towns, 20,000 men 
perishing to a bare hundred of the enemy. This disaster was 
retrieved in a fresh campaign by the victory of Mons-en-Pev^le, 
near I^ille (1304). Philippe, however, was afraid to continue 
the war, which was brought to a close by the Treaty of Athis- 
sur-Orge in 1305. By this treaty Philippe retained lyille, 
Douai, and Orchies, but otherwise recognized the feudal inde- 
pendence of the Count. In this case, therefore, his ambitions 
suffered a serious check. 

On the whole, Philippe*s reign saw many improvements in 
administration. The steady rise of the Parliament of Paris 
toward a position of recognized judicial supremacy was a great 
corrective to feudal anarchy and an immense gain to good 
government. The effective management of public affairs was 
also furthered by the continued differentiation of functions. 
New official departments were established — ^the ' H6tel,' which 
had charge of everything appertaining to the King's personal 
service — ^including, of course, the army — and the ' Chancel- 
lerie,' which was largely the King's executive ; the work of the 
Council was more clearly defined ; and out of this Council a 
' Chambre des Comptes ' was created to superintend national 
finance. But, on the other hand, with the growth of sovereignty 
toward absolutism the evils of absolutism began to appear. 

151 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Philippe was hard and despotic, and sometimes, as in the 
affair of the Templars, unjust and cruel. The increasing 
expense of government also led him to various abuses of power, 
for the means by which he sought to refill his always empty 
Treasury were often such as merit the severest condemnation. 
The extermination of the Templars is a case in point ; and 
arbitrary taxation, forced loans, and the persecution of Jews 
and foreign merchants have to be added to the list. His 
tamperings with the coinage, the value of which he altered 
in his own favour, come under the head of very sharp practice, 
if not of downright dishonesty. 

PhiHppe le Bel died on November 29, 13 14, at the age of 
forty-six. 



152 



CHAPTER X 

THE END OF THE CAPETIAN DYNASTY 

1314-1328 

THREE sons of Philippe IV now occupied the throne in 
rapid succession — ^lyouis X, called ' le Hutin,' or ' the 
Quarrelsome ' (1314-1316) ; Philippe V, ' le Ivong,' or 
' the Tall ' (1316-1322) ; and Charles IV, ' le Bel/ or ' the 
Handsome ' (1322-1328). With these the direct Capetian line 
comes to a close. 

The Feudal Reaction 

The fourteen years of the combined reigns of these kings 
added little of much importance to the history of France. 
They are chiefly noteworthy for the resolute attempt of the 
nobility to regain the privileges which they had lost under 
the centralizing policy of the preceding kings. Intrigue 
secured the overthrow of most of the ministers who had guided 
the counsels of Philippe le Bel ; some were imprisoned, others 
exiled ; while Enguerrand de Marigny perished on the gibbet 
at Montfaucon which he himself had built — his fate thus 
recalling that of Haman of old. Then the nobles reasserted 
the rights of coinage, the judicial duel, and private war. This 
reaction against the growth of absolutism, as a French historian 
has pointed out,^ might have led to results very similar to 
those attained by the English barons in their struggle with the 
monarchy, but for the fact that, instead of organizing among 
themselves and forming an alliance with the middle classes, 
as was the case in England, the French nobles acted inde- 
pendently, each man for himself, and for the most part against 
the interests of the rest of the nation. This is one of the 
1 Lavallee, Histoire des Frangais, t. i, p. 501. 

153 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

points at which we may clearly note the difference between 
the forces at work in the constitutional evolution of the two 
countries. Even as it was, however, the monarchy tempo- 
rarily lost ground. In the interests of peace concessions of 
various kinds were made to the nobles, and many of the local 
privileges of feudalism were restored. 

So far as the Crown was able to check this feudal reaction 
at all, it did so by cultivating the support of the commercial 
population, to which, indeed, in the changing' financial condi- 
tions of the country, it had more and more to look for the 
necessary supplies. The frequent convocation of the States- 
General has therefore a certain significance, as has also the 
fact that Philippe V granted letters of nobility to men belong- 
ing to the burgher ranks. '* In order," as the statement ran, 
'* that the people might do business more securely," the same 
King further attempted to regulate the currency and the 
weights and measures of the realm, while Charles IV, though 
in his pressing need of money he did not scruple to debase the 
coinage, plunder the Jews, and obtain tithes from the Church 
under promises of a new Crusade, also concerned himself with 
industrial affairs. Such policy was in general for the advantage 
of the middle classes and to the detriment of the feudal aristo- 
cracy. But by far the most remarkable sign of the times from 
this point of view was the growing independence of the Parlia- 
ment of Paris as the supreme agent of justice. This was 
specially exhibited in the case of a notorious Gascon count, 
named Jourdain de Tlsle, which came to a head in the reign 
of Charles IV. A survival from the worst days of feudal 
anarchy, this turbulent nobleman had lived for many years 
as a law unto himself, setting the King's authority at nought. 
On a charge of eighteen capital crimes he was at length sum- 
moned to appear before the Parliament. His reply was first 
to kill the official who delivered the summons, and then to 
ride into Paris with a large escort of friendly nobles and armed 
followers. By such display of insolence and brute strength 
he apparently expected to cow the ministers of justice. Fortu- 
nately he failed, and though Pope and nobles interceded for 
IS4 



END OF THE CAPETIAN DYNASTY 

him, he was sent to the gallows. His fate was an emphatic 
proof that central justice was now a real power in France, 
and that the monstrous lawlessness of the age of Philippe I 
was a thing of the past. 

In other ways, however, the spirit of social unrest was 
active. It -found vent in particular, under Philippe V, in a 
fresh rising of the pastonreaiix. Again a vast rabble of peasants 
and serfs collected with the avowed object of marching to 
the Holy I^and, and again as they poured southward they 
left behind them, as the evidence of their passage, devastated 
homes, pillaged churches, and the corpses of murdered Jews. 
No one as yet deemed it worth while to inquire into the miseries 
which in part lay behind these disturbances. The revolt was 
simply quelled by the heroic method of massacre and whole- 
sale executions. A cruel persecution of the Jews and lepers, 
whom vulgar fancy pictured as allied in the practice of nameless 
abominations, must also be mentioned in connexion with the 
social history of the time. 

Though the later Capetians fully maintained the standard 
of their ancestors as a singularly handsome race, it was noted 
by the superstitious that the hand of fate seemed to be upon 
them. One by one they died young — Philippe IV at forty-six, 
lyouis X at twenty-seven, Philippe V at twenty-eight, Charles IV 
at thirty-four. With the last-named the direct line of Hugues 
Capet ended. We now come to the circumstances in which 
the crown passed to a new, though closely connected, dynasty. 

The Origin of the Valois Dynasty 

When lyouis X died he left a daughter, but no male heir ; 
a son who was born shortly afterward, and who appears in 
the chronological list of kings as Jean I, lived only a week. 
I^ouis' brother, Philippe, who meanwhile had been acting as 
regent, thereupon assumed the title of King, and to justify 
his position he called the Council together and caused them 
to declare that he was in fact the proper heir, since the crown 
of France could never pass to a female nor through a female 
line. This is the origin of the so-called Salic I^aw. The rule 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

was based on a doubtful passage in the code of the SaHan 
Franks, which, referring as it did to the transmission, not of 
the crown, but merely of ordinary property, had no bearings 
whatever upon the case to which it was now applied. Yet such 
rule not only served its immediate purpose, but also established 
a precedent ; and to this precedent appeal was made a few 
years later when, as it happened, the problem of succession 
came up in a very similar form. lyike lyouis, Charles IV died 
without male heir, leaving his wife pregnant, and the instructions 
which he gave on his death-bed attest the hold which the Salic 
principle had already gained. ** When Charles saw that he 
must die," writes Froissart, " he ordered that if the Queen 
should give birth to a boy, then Messire Philippe of Valois, 
his cousin-german, should be his tutor and the regent of the 
kingdom until such time as .the boy should be of an age to 
be King ; but if it happened that a girl was born, then the 
twelve peers and the high barons of France should take counsel 
and give the realm to him who ought to have it." Soon after 
his d^ath the Queen gave birth to a girl. Then the barons 
met in deliberation as Charles had directed. Louis X's sur- 
viving daughter and the two daughters of Philippe V were 
passed over because it was now established that no woman 
could sit on the throne, and when later Edward III of England 
put in his claim as the son of Isabelle, daughter of Philippe IV, 
it was barred on the ground that it rested on descent in the 
female line. The choice of the barons accordingly fell upon 
the next male heir in the male line, who was Philippe of Valois, 
the son of Charles of Valois, Philippe IV's brother. Thus the 
direct Capetian "dynasty was followed by the house of Valois. 
The Capetians had ruled over France for 341 years, and this 
long period had witnessed, as we have seen, the practical 
transformation of the country. With the end of their line we 
are also within sight of the real end of the regime of feudalism. 
We are now about to enter upon the lo^ig period of transition 
from medieval to modern times. 



156 



THE HOUSE OF CAPET i 



HuGUES Capkt (946 ?-996) 

I 

Robert II (970 7-103 1) 

I 

Henri I (1005 ?-io6o) 

I 

Phi]cippE I (1052-1108) 

I 

I/Ouis VI (1081-1137) 

1 

Ivouis VII (11 20-1 180) 

I 

Phii,ippk II (Philippe-Auguste) 

(1165-1223) 

Louis VIII (1187-1226) 
I 



I^ouis IX (St I^ouis) 
(1215-1270) 

Phii^ippk III 
(1245-1285) 



liOUIS X 
(1289-1316) 



Phiwppe IV 
(1268-1314) 



Phii^ippe V 

{1293 P-I322) 



I 

Charles d'Anjou, 

King of Naples 

(1220-1285) 



Charles de Valois 
(1270-1325) 

I 
Phii^ippe VI 
Chari^ES IV Isabelle (1293- 13 50) 

(1294-1328) m. Kdward II 
of England 

I 

Edward III 
of England 



Jeanne de Navarre 

m. Philippe, King of Navarre 

from 1329 to 1343 

I 

Charles le Mauvais, King of 
Navarre from 1343 to 1387 



^ The dates given for each monarch are those of his birth and death. The 
date of accession synchronizes in every case with the death of the preceding 
king. 



1S7 



BOOK III 

THE HOUSE OF VALOIS 

1328-1589 

CHAPTER I 

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

THE FIRST STAGE (to 1360) 

WHEN Philippe of Valois ascended the throne the power 
of the monarchy was greater than it had been since 
the time of Charlemagne. Three-fourths of the 
territory of France now belonged to the royal domain, while 
of the remainder the most important parts were held in fief 
by the Kings of England and Navarre. The people were also 
on the whole prosperous, and, as things then went, happy, 
and both their prosperity and their happiness seemed likely 
to increase. The new reign therefore opened with brilliant 
promise. That promise was destined, however, to remain 
unfulfilled. Before long France was involved in the terrible 
struggle with England which for more than a century was 
to keep the country seething in anarch}^ and more than once 
to bring it to the verge of irretrievable disaster. 

At the outset, indeed, there seemed a good chance of peace 
between the French King and his cousin, for Edward, pre- 
occupied with war in Scotland and complications at home, 
made no protest against Philippe's election to the throne, 
and even took the vow of vassalage in respect of his French 
holdings. But it was impossible that a good understanding 
should continue indefinitely while the King of England, firmly 
lodged on French soil, remained an obvious rival to his nominal 
suzerain. It would have been the height of folly on Philippe's 
part, too, to ignore the patent fact that Edward's claim to 

158 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

the French throne, though renounced for the moment, would 
certainly be revived on the first convenient occasion. His 
perception of danger prompted him to act in a way which 
at once jeopardized peace, for in order to embarrass his rival 
he supported the Scots in their splendid stand for independence 
against him. Then came the affair of Robert of Artois, who 
quarrelled with Philippe about his ancestral estates, resorted 
to fraud and, it was alleged, to black magic, to maintain his 
rights, and finally, compelled to fly for his life, took refuge 
at Edward's Court. Philippe thereupon proclaimed (1336) 
that Robert was a public enemy, and that the property of 
any one abetting him would accordingly be confiscated. Kdward 
understood, of course, that the threat was meant expressly 
for him, and, instigated by Robert, renewed his claims to the 
French crown, following this up with a declaration of war. 

It happened that the Flemings, under the leadership of 
Jacob van Artevelde, a brewer of Ghent, were just then in 
revolt against the despotic Count of Flanders, the French 
King's vassal. Artevelde invited Kdward to interfere in the 
Flemings' behalf, and urged him, as a justification of his action, 
at once to assume the title of King of France. This Edward, 
after some hesitation, was ultimately persuaded to do. In a 
naval engagement off the Dutch coast near Sluis, in 1340, the 
EngHsh fleet destroyed the French, and Edward was thus 
insured against any French invasion of his own shores. But 
his hands were tied by troubles with his nobles and clergy, and 
for some years no decisive step was taken by either side. 

The Invasion of France by Edward III 

Further complications now arose in connexion with a dispute 
about the succession to the duchy of Brittany. Two claimants 
were in the field — one the uncle of the late Duke, John of 
Montfort, the other the late Duke's niece Jeanne, now 
the wife of Charles of Blois, of the royal house of France. 
Philippe naturally supported Jeanne ; and this was of course 
sufficient reason for Edward to throw his influence into the 
other scale. Hostilities began between the competitors, and 

IS9 



HISTORY OP FRANCE 

when John was made a prisoner his wife, also named Jeanne, 
carried on the struggle with astonishing vigour ; whence the 
conflict came to be known as the Guerre des Deux Jeannes, 
or War of the Two Joans. A truce was presently arranged 
which was to last till St Michael's Day 1346. But in the 
meantime Philippe invited fifteen knights of Brittany who had 
espoused the English cause to a tournament in Paris, where 
he had them arrested and executed without the formality of a 
trial. Upon this Edward decided upon the invasion of France. 
With his son, the Black Prince, and 32,000 men he landed on 
July 22, 1346, at lya Hogue-Saint-Vaast, in Normandy, seized 
Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, and Saint-IyO, captured Caen 
after a brief resistance, and, having failed in an attack on 
Rouen, pushed on toward Paris. Philippe advanced to meet 
him with a great army, and Edward, finding it advisable to 
fa^l back, drew up his forces on the slopes near Crecy, a village 
twelve miles north of Abbeville. There, on August 26, 1346, 
a sensational victory was won by the English, mainly by reason 
of the extraordinary skill and prowess of their bowmen. 
Froissart puts the number of the French army at 100,000, 
that of the English at 40,000. Of the French, eleven princes, 
eighty knights-bannaret, 12,000 simple knights, and 30,000 
soldiers were slain. 

Eight days later Edward was before the walls of Calais, 
which he had determined to capture, as the key to France. 
The city was strongly fortified, and he therefore resolved to 
starve it into submission. But so heroic was the resistance 
of the inhabitants under their governor, Jean de Vienne, that 
though the siege began in September 1346 it was not till the 
middle of the July following that, reduced to the direst 
extremities by hunger and disease, the men of Calais were 
driven to capitulation. Then comes one of the most moving 
passages in French history. An embassy was sent to Edward 
to sue for peace. His reply was that he would consider the 
request only on condition that six of the principal citizens, 
clothed only in their shirts, and each one with a halter round 
his neck, should bring him the keys of the city and deliver 
160 




17- The Batti^e of Poitikrs 



1 60 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

themselves unreservedly into his hands. When Jean de Vienne 
returned with this response " he caused the bell to be rung 
that all manner of people might assemble in the market/' 
Men and women came eager for news ; and when they heard 
they began to weep so that the hardest heart would have been 
filled with -pity to see them. Then after a space the richest 
burgher in the city, Kustache de Saint-Pierre, stood forth 
and offered himself as one of the delegation ; " f or I have," 
he said, '' great hope of peace and pardon from our lyord 
if I die for this people." Five others soon joined him, and 
together they presented themselves as directed before the 
KngUsh King where he sat surrounded by his nobles. But 
Kdward listened to their dignified appeal for mercy unmoved, 
and when they had done ordered them away for instant execu- 
tion — an action which provides a curious commentary upon 
the boasted refinements of chivalry. Is his conduct at this 
point, we may wonder, to be included among those " honour- 
able and noble adventures " which Froissart desired to '' put in 
perpetual memory," that they might encourage others in 
similar well-doing ? It was only through the passionate inter- 
cession of the Queen, Philippa of Hainaut, that the lives of Bus- 
tache and his fellows were spared.^ The French inhabitants 
were then driven out, and Calais became an English colony. 

A truce was now arranged between the two Kings which 
was continued till 1355. Five years before its expiration 
PhiUppe died, and the French throne was now occupied by 
his son, Jean II, called ' le Bon ' (' the Good ') a strange surname 
for a man who was violent in temper, vindictive, improvident, 
and dishonest. His ' goodness ' apparently consisted wholly 
in his fair endowment of physical courage. Though the War 
of the Two Joans continued in Brittany, the renewal of hostiUties 
between France and England began in the south. Jean was 
at variance with Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre, whom, 
on the ground that he would have no one master in France 
except himself,^ he had arrested at a banquet and thrown into 
prison ; afterward laying siege to Breteuil in his dominions. 
^ Froissart, Chroniques, chap, cxlvi. ^ Ibid., chap. clvi. 

I, 161 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

At this juncture the Black Prince landed at Bordeaux and 
made a marauding excursion through the south, burning and 
robbing as he went. On his way back to the coast his army, 
now laden with booty, found its way blocked near Poitiers by 
a French force led by the King himself. The odds against 
the English were once more tremendous, for they mustered 
only some 2000 men-at-arms and 6000 bowmen against 60,000 
of the enemy. But Jean's fatal blundering in tactics, the 
headstrong courage of the French nobles, and the deadly 
work of the English archers turned Poitiers into a second 
Crecy. Thousands of Frenchmen were left dead on the field, 
and Jean himself was taken prisoner. That evening the 
Black Prince gave a great banquet iii his honour, iiimself 
serving him with meat and otherwise behaving with all the 
fantastic gallantry of which- romance loves to take account. 
It is not inappropriate at this point to recall his father's 
brutality to the noble citizens of Calais. 

The Treaty of Bretigny 

Carried to I^ondon, Jean remained a prisoner to the English 
for three years, and was then released upon payment of an 
enormous ransom. A treaty of peace was thereupon arranged 
between the two countries, and signed (1360) at Bretigny, 
near Chartres. By this treaty Jean undertook no longer to 
stir the Scots against the English, while Edward engaged to 
cease supporting the Flemings against France. As the question 
of the relations of Scotland with England had all along been ' 
a kind of offset to that of the relations of Flanders with France, 
the balance thus struck was fairly even. Otherwise the treaty 
was entirely in England's favour. Edward was permitted to 
retain Guyenne, with all its dependencies, and Calais, and 
received in addition Poitou, Perigord, I^imousin, and various 
other provinces : all these henceforth to be held, not on feudal 
tenure, but in right of full independent sovereignty. 

This treaty brings the first stage of the Hundred Years' 
War to a close, with Edward the absolute master of nearly 
one-third of France. 
162 % 



CHAPTER II 

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

THE SECOND STAGE (to 1380) 

WHEN four years later Jean le Bon died his son 
Charles V succeeded to a heritage of trouble. The 
Treaty of Bretigny had dismembered the country, 
which was still further torn by the strife of rival factions, 
the war in Brittany still dragged on, and Charles the Bad 
of Navarre continued to be a source of danger to the public 
peace. The state of France thus gave cause for the gravest 
disquietude. Nor, as it seemed, was the new King precisely 
the kind of man to grapple effectively with so many and 
such great difficulties. Of frail constitution and uncertain 
health, he was markedly deficient alike in physical courage 
and in moral resolution. His tastes, indeed, were those 
of the scholar rather than those of the soldier, or even the 
statesman, and up to the time of his accession he had found 
his chief pleasure, not in the stress of war or politics, but in 
mathematics and philosophy. To these tastes in part, though 
even more to the sound intelligence he presently revealed, he 
owes his surname of ' le Sage,' or * the Wise.' Yet, while 
there was thus little in his character to inspire hope in such 
a period of confusion, his reign of sixteen years, covering 
the second stage of the Hundred Years' War, witnessed a 
decisive revival in the fortunes of his country. Of his 
sagacity in internal administration we have not now to 
speak. The point which for the moment concerns us is that 
before he died the successes of the English in France during 
the two preceding reigns had been almost completely wiped 
out. 

163 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Bertrand Du Guesclin 

This extraordinary reversal in the position of the two 
countries is in large measure to be explained by the fact that, 
while himself entirely unfit for the field, Charles was fortunate 
enough to surround himself with great military commanders 
whose genius and energies sufficed to make ample amends for 
his own shortcomings. Among these by far the most impor- 
tant was the famous Breton, Bertrand Du Guesclin, who, born 
about 1320, was in the full vigour of his manhood when Charles 
came to the throne. It was he, too, who more than any other 
man of his time brought into warfare a new sense of the value 
of science and strategy. Crecy and Poitiers had been lost in 
part because the French nobles had despised tactics and 
had relied entirely upon their reckless courage and their 
individual prowess. With the rising school of captains, of 
wham Du Guesclin was the chief, warfare became an art. In 
the battle of Cocherel, with Charles the Bad of Navarre, he 
showed how by a feigned retreat he could lead his enemy into 
a trap. 

He first distinguished himself in the endless War of the 
Two Joans in Brittany, which was finally brought to a close 
by Charles' decision to recognize the claims of the Montfort 
party. Then later, when the folly and tyranny of the Black 
Prince put all Gascony into a fever of revolt, and Charles saw 
that the moment had come for a resolute move against the 
foreign intruder, Du Guesclin came into prominence as the 
great guiding genius of the French arms — the brain behind 
the muscles. He had already been a prisoner of England, and 
the circumstances of his release throw a curious light upon his 
own character and upon the temper of the time. One day, 
during his captivity at Bordeaux, he chanced to encounter 
the Black Prince. '' How do you do, Bertrand ? " the Prince 
inquired. '' Marvellously well, Monseigneur," Bertrand rephed, 
'' for it is everywhere reported that I am the first knight in 
all the world, since you do not dare to ransom me." The 
Prince was piqued, and told him on the spot that he could fix 
164 



\ 




1 8. Thk Death of Du Guesci^in 



164 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

his own ransom. ^' A hundred thousand gold doubles/* was 
the reply ; and when, astonished at this (for Du Guesclin was 
not rich), the Prince asked where he could hope to raise such 
a sum, his answer was : '' Monseigneur, the King of France 
will pay one half, and the King of Castile the other ; and 
if that is not enough, there is not a woman or girl in the 
land who would not sell the work of her distaff to rescue 
me from prison." The money was in fact obtained with- 
out difficulty, and Du Guesclin was again able to take the 
field. 

On the appeal of the Gascons, Charles in 1369 cited the 
Black Prince to appear before the Chamber of Peers in Paris 
to aUvSwer certain charges of extortion and misgovernment 
made against him. '' We will go willingly to our uncle," 
was the Prince's reply, '' but it will be with our bassinet on 
our head and sixty thousand men in our company." War 
then broke out in north and south. The French exasperated 
and wearied the English with their clever tactics ; and the 
Black Prince stained his fame by the last exploit of his life — 
the brutal massacre of the men, women, and children of 
lyimoges. Du Guesclin, now Constable of France, pursued a 
harassing policy of minor engagements, avoiding every danger 
of putting himself at a disadvantage against the fine infantry 
and splendid bowmen of the enemy, yet making each small 
success count substantially in his general plan of campaign. 
By such methods, continued without relaxation for nearly 
fourteen years, by his clever ruses, his rapid marches, his bold 
manoeuvres, and his ceaseless activity, he gradually broke 
down the strength of the invaders, losing now here and now 
there, indeed, but on the whole gaining ground upon them, 
until at length, castle by castle and town by town, Poitou, 
Aunis, Saintonge, Guyenne, Auvergne, and lyimousin were 
almost entirely in his hands. By this time the English, 
disgusted and worn out, were heartily sick of such an expensive 
and disastrous war. A truce arranged in 1375 was broken by 
Charles on Edward's death in 1377, ^^^ "the whole of Guyenne 
was conquered. Then in 1380 the English consented to retire 

X65 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

from France, having lost all their possessions except the five 
fortified towns of Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bayonne, and 
Bordeaux. 

Charles died in September 1380, having outlived Du Guesclin 
just two months. It was a good omen for France that 
the weak and indolent Richard II now sat on the English 
throne. 



166 



CHAPTER III 
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

THE THIRD STAGE (to 1420) 

CHARIvES VI, a boy not yet twelve when his father died, 
was placed under the tutelage of his uncles, Philip the 
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, I^ouis, Duke of Anjou, and 
John, Duke of Berry, whose violent rivalries at once threw 
the government of the country into confusion. Ambitious, 
grasping, and cruel, swayed only by considerations of their 
own interests, and without a spark of public spirit, these 
masterful men, by their quarrels, depredations, and the fresh 
burdens of taxation which they sought to impose, added so 
much to the miseries of the people that movements of revolt 
broke out in many parts of the land, while some of the great 
towns, such as Rouen and Paris itself, were plunged into what 
was practically a state of civil war. At length, after some 
years of ever-increasing turmoil, the condition of things became 
intolerable, and at a council which he convened at Reims in 
1388 Charles, now of age, was urged to take the reins of power 
into his own hands. Four years of relative tranquillity fol- 
lowed. Then the King's mind, which had already on more 
than one occasion shown signs of unsteadiness, gave way 
entirely, and from 1394 onward he was insane. Upon this the 
destinies of the realm once more passed to the princes, two of 
whom proceeded to engage in a fierce struggle for ascendancy. 
One of these was the King's brother, lyouis, Duke of Orleans, 
who lived in open adultery with the Queen, the beautiful but 
worthless Isabelle of Bavaria, and aspired to the dictatorship 
of the kingdom ; the other the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip 
the Bold's son, John the Fearless. Each of these leaders 

167 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

professed to act in loyalty to the King, treating the other as 
an impudent usurper of royal authority ; while the poor King 
himself, in his occasional lucid intervals, could only look on 
in pitiful impotence. Ultimately the Duke of Orleans was 
murdered one evening in a Paris street " by eighteen men who 
lodged in a hotel which had for its sign the image of the Blessed 
Virgin . . . where they had remained for several days waiting 
their opportunity.'' This, as the world soon learned, was the 
work of the Duke of Burgundy ; and it was an act of peculiar 
atrocity because only on the preceding Sunday the two princes 
had taken the sacrament together in token of their reconcilia- 
tion. Then the murdered Duke's son, Charles, allied himself 
by marriage with the Count of Armagnac, the Constable of 
France, who put himself at the head of the anti-Burgundian 
party. It was now war to the knife between the Burgun- 
dians and the Armagnacs ; the former of whom, with the red 
cross of St Antoine as their badge, depended openly on the 
support of the populace, while the latter, the party of the 
white scarf, were in close alliance with the Queen and the 
Court. 

That the progress of these internal dissensions was watched 
with eager interest on the other side of the Channel will of 
course be taken for granted. The English at first favoured 
the Burgundians. Then Henry IV, shortly before his death, 
was persuaded that it would be to his advantage to change 
sides. Nothing of importance happened, however, till Henry V 
succeeded to the throne. Upon this the struggle between the 
two countries was renewed with a peripeteia as astonishing 
as that which had brought the second stage of the long drama 
to its close. 

The Invasion of France by Henry V 

A bold soldier, a bigoted Churchman, and an ambitious 
king, Henry was, indeed, no statesman, yet he was shrewd 
enough to perceive that merely as a matter of policy war with 
France had ever3rthing in its favour. By such a war, which 
would certainly be popular, he saw that he could divert public 
i68 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

attention from his own very doubtful title to the English 
crown, draw off the restless nobility, whose energies could 
be more safely employed in foreign conquests than in civil 
broils, and evade for a time at least the domestic troubles 
which were threatening to assume dangerous proportions. The 
chaotic condition of France gave him his opportunity. Bach 
of the rival parties sought to strengthen itself by his support. 
For a time he intrigued with both. This gave him time to 
make his preparations. Then he took decisive action. To 
begin with, he demanded the immediate surrender of all the 
territory which had been ceded to England by the Treaty of 
Bretigny. Then he suddenly revived Edward Ill's claim to 
the French crown. The impudence of such a claim on his 
part was nothing short of amazing. But it served his purpose. 
Negotiations for a possible compromise went on for some 
time, Henry meanwhile making secret arrangements with the 
Duke of Burgundy, whose alliance it was his interest to secure. 
Then, his plans matured, he proceeded to the invasion of 
France. 

The events of his campaign were few, but striking. It was 
in the summer of 1415 that he embarked at Southampton with 
a fleet of 1500 vessels and about 30,000 men. Harfleur was 
captured after a siege of five weeks — a costly victory, for disease 
meanwhile reduced his army by at least one-third. Realizing 
that an aggressive policy would now for the moment be 
dangerous, he decided to winter in Calais. But on the road 
thither, at the village of Maisoncelles, he was met by a formidable 
French force, numbering three times his own, and composed, 
moreover, of fresh and vigorous soldiers. Every one is familiar 
with what followed, if only through Shakespeare's vivid though 
overcharged picture. The foolishly confident French, after 
their chiefs had rejected Henry's overtures for peace, spent 
the night before the battle in dicing and revelry. The English, 
impressed by the solemnity of the occasion, made confession 
and received the sacrament. Rain fell heavily, but during 
an interval of moonlight the English King made a careful 
examination of his troops and the field. Next morning found 

169 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the two armies face to face ; but some time elapsed before 
either ventured to attack. Then Henry gave the order to 
advance. Once more the BngHsh archers did splendid service. 
In three hours the rout of the French was complete. It was 
a wonderful victory, though the glory of it was tarnished by 
the massacre of the prisoners, carried out at Henry's command. 
Henry called the battle Agincourt, from the name of a castle 
near by. 

Meanwhile the contentions of the Burgundians and the 
Armagnacs went on increasing in fury, and further complica- 
tions arose from the bitter quarrel between the Queen and her 
young son Charles, now the Dauphin. These conditions made 
it easy for Henry to pursue his scheme of conquest. A few 
months made him master of the greater part of Normandy, 
and, while civil war raged in Paris, he found little to obstruct 
his' further triumphant march. Common danger now brought 
the French chiefs for a moment to their senses, and the Duke 
of Burgundy and the Dauphin at a personal interview (July 1419) 
agreed to unite in defence of their country, thereupon embracing 
one another with all the fervour of brotherly love. A second 
meeting was arranged at Montereau, on the Yonne, in order 
that their policy might be thoroughly discussed and settled. 
At that meeting (September 10, 1419) the Duke, as he knelt 
before the Dauphin, was struck down and killed by the 
Dauphin's followers. This crime produced a tremendous 
popular reaction against the Dauphin and his party, and far 
more than Henry's own achievements — far more even than 
the brilliant victory at Agincourt — ^it ensured Henry's success. 
The Queen, the new Duke of Burgundy, and the people of 
Paris entered forthwith into negotiations with the English 
King for peace ; his demands, once deemed extravagant, were 
now accepted ; the Dauphin was set aside altogether ; Henry 
was recognized as regent of France during the present King's 
life and as his successor upon his death ; and, to unite the 
two houses, it was further agreed that the Princess Catherine 
should become Henry's wife. The marriage took place on 
Trinity Sunday (June 2) 1420, less than a fortnight after the 
170 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

signing (May 21) of the disgraceful Treaty of Troyes, by which 
the independence of France was crushed at a blow and the 
crown of France made the heritage of a foreign king. 

Henry did not live long to enjoy a triumph which, however 
much it might redound to his personal glory, was destined to 
bring untold disasters upon his own country in the years to 
come. Compelled by the activity and successes of the Dauphin 
to undertake a fresh invasion of France, he was attacked by 
dysentery and died at Vincennes on August 31, 1422. Accord- 
ing to his death-bed directions, the regency of France was 
placed in the hands of his brother, the Duke of Bedford, having 
first been offered to and declined by the Duke of Burgundy. 

Two months later Charles VI also died, and the infant son 
of Henry and Catherine, Henry VI, was proclaimed King of 
France. 



171 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

THE I.AST STAGE (to 1453) 

NEWS of his father's death reached the disinherited Dauphin , 
now a youth of nineteen, at the castle of Espaly, near 
IvC Puy, in Ivanguedoc, where he had taken refuge with 
a small band of adherents.- The next day, clothed in a robe 
of royal scarlet, he attended Mass in the castle chapel, after 
which the banner of France was unfurled, and those about 
him cried : " Vive le roy ! " 

As he thus refused to accept the shameful Treaty of Troyes, 
France had now two kings in name. North of the I^oire 
almost the whole country was for Henry, who was also accepted 
in Guyenne. In the south, Auvergne, I^anguedoc, and Lyonnais 
remained faithful to the legitimist cause, as did also the central 
counties of Touraine, Orleanais, Berry, Bourbonnais, and Anjou. 
But the English only laughed at Charles' pretensions, calHng 
him in jest the King of Bourges, in which city he chiefly resided. 

The English in France 

BrilHant as Henry V's work appeared on the surface, how- 
ever, it was obviously unstable at its foundations, since the 
English after all were only foreigners on French soil, and 
the success achieved by their arms would have to be main- 
tained by military occupation. This the conqueror himself had 
evidently realized on his death-bed. All that was needed to 
secure the overthrow of this alien regime was a decisive revival 
of that national spirit which the long war of rival factions had 
almost crushed. Such a revival was now soon to come. 

To consolidate the alliance with the powerful Burgundian 
172 




p 

e 

u 

w 
p 

Oi 

a 
<1 



o 

w 

o 

M 
W 
H 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

party, which was manifestly essential to English supremacy, 
the Dnke of Bedford married the Duke of Burgundy's sister. 
This, however, did not prevent the breaking out of a serious 
private feud between the Duke of Burgundy and the English 
Protector, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, over the latter's 
marriage with the Countess of Hainaut. This disturbance 
of peaceful relationships with the haughty nobleman whose 
co-operation the Regent was most solicitous to retain was a 
clear menace to English interests. Yet as the war dragged 
on the English on the whole continued not only to hold their 
own, but even to gain ground, and the position of the French 
became more and more precarious. Constitutionally feeble, 
morally weak, and now depressed to the point of despair, 
Charles allowed things to drift from bad to worse without 
making any serious effort to check the rot in his fortunes. 
He was now so miserably poor that he was often compelled 
to have recourse, even for the barest necessaries, to the ever 
open purse of Jacques Coeur, the great merchant-prince of 
Bourges ; and his Court was crowded with followers as needy 
and as infirm of purpose as himself. 

At length the Regent resolved to clear the whole country 
north of the lyoire of Charles' sympathizers, and to extend 
southward the area of English influence. Orleans, the most 
important city still in Charles' possession, was accordingly 
selected as the first object of attack, and on October 12, 1428, 
it was duly invested by an army under the Earl of Salisbury, 
who had been placed in chief command. The city garrison 
numbered only between 400 and 500 men, but the inhabitants 
were courageous and determined, and having expected the 
siege they had made careful preparations for resistance. Before 
a fortnight had elapsed the English had suffered a severe loss 
in the death of the Earl of Salisbury, who while examining the 
fortifications from a tower commanding the city had been 
struck and mortally wounded by a cannon-ball. Under his 
successor, the Earl of Suffolk, the siege continued throughout 
^he severe winter, the English gradually drawing their lines 
closer and closer about the city in the hope of establishing a 

173 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

complete blockade. One incident only in the monotonous 
struggle is worthy of record, and this is the strange battle 
which was fought near Rouvray on February 12, 1429. The 
English, having devastated the surrounding country, were 
now themselves falling short of provisions, and the Duke of 
Bedford therefore despatched a large convoy — ^principally salt 
fish — to their relief, with an escort of 1700 soldiers under the 
brave Sir John Fastolf. The French in la?:ge numbers inter- 
cepted the convoy ; but the English, using their wagons as 
barricades, repulsed the attack with great slaughter. The field 
of battle was covered with fish ; for which reason the people 
of Orleans humorously called it ' the Battle of the Herrings.' 

By this time, however, the condition of the beleaguered 
city was desperate ; famine was imminent ; and, as it would 
seem, there was no hope of relief from the indolent King. At 
that critical juncture one of the most wonderful figures in all 
French history appeared upon the scene — the inspired peasant 
girl, Jeanne Dare, well named the Saviour of France. 

Jeanne Darc 

Jeanne Darc (familiarly known in English history as 
Joan of Arc) was born on January 6, 1412,^ in the village 
of Domremy, in Champagne, where her father was a small 
farmer. Her childhood was uneventful. She received no 
education, and to the end could neither write nor read ; but 
her devout mother gave her careful religious instruction and 
she early knew the lyord's Prayer, the Ave, and the Creed 
by heart ; while, as she afterward told her judges, in sewing 
and spinning she could hold her own " against any woman 
in Rouen." Occupied from her earliest years in household 
labours, she grew up like the other girls about her, active and 
happy, though she was distinguished among them by her 
habit of silent brooding and the special ardour of her piety. 
These characteristics became more marked from about her 
twelfth year on, when she ceased to join in the games of her 

* This is the date now generally accepted, though it is not absolutely 
certain. 

174 



THE HUNDRED YEARS* WAR 

companions and showed increasing fondness for the services 
of the Church, for prayers and meditation, and for long, solitary- 
rambles in the surrounding country. All that she saw and 
heard — and, like other children, she saw and heard much — 
of the fearful calamities which incessant war had brought upon 
France made a deep impression upon her. She wept over these 
things in secret ; they came to possess and control her whole 
being. Hence, as we may suppose, the mystical call from 
heaven which was to determine her life and fate. 

It was in the noontide hush of a summer day in 1425 that, as 
she stood in her father's garden, Jeanne suddenly saw a strange 
light, which was not that of the sun, and heard a voice speaking 
to her, as it would seem from the direction of the neighbour- 
ing church. At first she was seized with a great terror. But 
as after this the signs came again and again, she grew familiar 
with them, and all her fear left her as she learned that the 
voices were those of St Michael, and of St Margaret and St 
Catherine, whom St Michael had sent to comfort her. So by 
little and little her great mission was revealed to her and 
her whole nature was penetrated by spiritual rapture and 
patriotic zeal. But she said nothing, not even to her mother 
or to her confessor, till she was sixteen. Then the voices 
became more specific in their biddings, and she was commanded 
to go at once and seek out Robert de Baudricourt, who was 
then at the head of the French army in Vaucouleurs. She 
induced a relative by marriage, one Durand I^axard (or lyassoir) 
to escort her, and was presented to the brave but dissolute 
Baudricourt, to whom she spoke, though timidly, of her desire 
to help the King. We must not be surprised that the trained 
soldier refused to take seriously the offer of this strange peasant 
girl, who suddenly appeared from nowhere and with no creden- 
tials to substantiate her appeal. Regarding her, and very 
naturally, as a mad woman or an adventuress, he made short 
work of the interview. " Take her home to her father," he 
said to Durand, " and give her a good whipping." But after 
this rebuff the voices grew more and more urgent, and when 
Jeanne protested '* I am only a poor girl, I do not know how 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to ride or fight," the reply was : " It is God's will," At last, 
no longer able to resist the imperative call, Jeanne resolved to 
commit herself to heaven, and one day in Januaiy 1429, 
without a word of warning or farewell, she left Domremy — as 
it proved, for ever. Her parents when they heard of her 
flight made no attempt to recover her, undoubtedly because 
they were too angry to care. When afterward she was 
reproached with her unfilial behaviour toward them, her 
answer was : ''It had to be ; but since then I have had letters 
written to them and they have forgiven me." 

Again she repaired to Vaucouleurs, and there her faith in 
her cause, the ardour of her patriotism, and the strange magnetic 
force of her personaHty gradually broke down all opposition, 
and ultimately made a profound impression upon a few loyal 
adherents of the King, and even upon Baudricourt himself. 
" Have you not heard," she said to him, alluding to a prophecy 
which had become current, " how it has been foretold that 
France should be lost by a woman " — ^the infamous Isabelle 
of Bavaria — " and restored by a maid. ? " And again : ''I 
had far rather spin at my mother's side, for this is no work of 
my choosing ; but I must do it, for it is God's will." The 
superstition of the age was of course greatly in her favour, and 
she had her way. Provided with a man's costume and with 
six attendants who had volunteered to accompany her, she 
set out on February 23 for Chinon, where the King then lay. 
The journey was beset with dangers, for the road led through 
a country infested by the enemy. But it was safely made, 
and Chinon was reached on March 6. 

The moment of her arrival was opportune. The French 
Treasury was empty; the fall of Orleans was expected daily; 
the royal outlook seemed hopeless. In such circumstances 
the King might well be willing to clutch even at a straw. 
None the less the difficulties with which she had to contend 
were such as would have shattered any faith less absolute 
than hers. She asked the King for troops for the relief of 
Orleans. He was suspicious, and temporized. Those of his 
Court who were sceptical laughed ; those who were devout 
176 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

surmised the devil. " Give me soldiers, soldiers/' she kept 
repeating, growing daily more and more impatient of delay. 
Then more valuable time was wasted while a number of learned 
theologians, commissioned by Charles, made elaborate inquiries 
into her case, to the end that it might be determined whether 
her inspiration was indeed of God or of Satan. At length the 
King was advised, though in a guarded way, that he might 
venture to avail himself of the young girl's offer of help. She 
was accordingly provided with a charger, a suit of white armour, 
squire, page, heralds, and a detachment of men. Her banner 
was of her own devising— white, with embroidered lilies, with 
on the one side God enthroned, and on the other the shield 
of France supported by angels, and the motto '* Jhesu Maria." 
This she carried herself in preference to her sword, for she 
never took any personal part in the fighting, nor did any man 
ever fall by her hand. Her pennon, also wrought on her own 
direction, represented the Annunciation. 

She began her campaign by sending to the Duke of Bedford — 
the *' so-called Regent " — a formal demand that he should 
at once raise the siege of Orleans and deliver to her the keys 
of all the good French cities which he had captured. Her 
letter, couched in the language of prophetic enthusiasm, stirred 
the Knglish leaders to fury. Then she advanced upon the 
city, which on April 30 she succeeded in entering with victuals 
and stores for the starving garrison. It was evening, and as 
amid the glare of many torches she rode in full white armour 
through the crowded streets the whole population went mad 
with excitement, looking upon her as indeed a deliverer sent 
straight by heaven. Her appearance was followed by an 
immediate and extraordinary change in the situation. The 
Maid's presence in the city, as Dunois afterward testified, 
seemed to transform the inhabitants : faith and courage revived 
in them ; instead of awaiting their doom like rats in a trap, 
they took the offensive. On the other hand, the English, 
convinced th^t some diabolical power was in action against 
them (for on this side too superstition played a large part in 
the Maid's success), lost heart and hope. One by one the 

M 177 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

bastilles which they had built about the city were captured ; 
repeated reverses, following the long strain of the siege, caused 
rapid demoralization ; and on the 12th of May, abandoning 
provisions, artillery, baggage, prisoners, and sick, they made 
a hurried and humiliating retreat. Then disaster was added 
to disaster. The Earl of Suffolk fell into the enemy's hands 
at Jargeau ; Talbot was captured at Patay ; Fastolf, it is 
said, found safety in flight ; and some 2500 soldiers were slain. 
Bedford, compelled to return in hot haste to Paris, then wrote 
to his Government at home that the tide of fortune had been 
turned against them by '' a limb of the fiend " whom the 
French called ' la Pucelle.' In that phrase we already detect 
the bitter and insensate hatred with which the English were 
to pursue the noble and patriotic French girl to the tragic 
end of her brief career, and which later passed through lying 
chrQuicles to find its ultimate expression in the vulgar animosity, 
the vile accusations, and the disgusting coarseness of Shake- 
speare's Henry VI .^ 

At Jeanne's instigation Charles without further delay set 
out for Reims, with an army of 10,000 men. Troyes, though 
strongly garrisoned by Burgundians and English, and Chalons- 
sur-Marne surrendered to him by the way ; at his approach 
the citizens of Reims drove out the English troops, and he 
entered the city in triumph on Saturday, July 16. The next 
day he was crowned by the Archbishop in the cathedral. Joan 
stood beside him during the ceremony, holding her standard 
in her hand, and when it was over she fell on her knees before 
him, the tears 'streaming down her cheeks ; " and all those 
who were watching her were greatly touched." 

Many other towns now capitulated to the King, while the 
Duke of Bedford, paralysed by these French successes, could 
only send urgent messages to England for reinforcements. 

It would have been well for the Maid if at this point, her 

* Yet such is the force of superstitious veneration for a great name that 
there have not been wanting modern Knglish writers of repute to defend and 
justify Shakespeare — if indeed Shakespeare was responsible for the atrocious 
scenes in question. 

178 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

immediate mission accomplished, she had been allowed to 
return to Domremy and private life. Such appears to have 
been her own desire. But unfortunately Charles persuaded 
her to remain for a time in his service. She therefore accom- 
panied his "army on its march toward Paris, and was present 
at several engagements. But the King's pusillanimity and 
the obstinate hostility of his advisers were a continual check 
upon her plans. The failure of an attack on Paris (September 7), 
in the course of which she was herself slightly wounded, was 
a deep disappointment to her, for she had set her heart upon 
the winning of the capital. Charles' inactivity during the 
ensuing winter was equally vexatious, for it gave the English 
time to recover strength ; and if on the one hand the jealousy 
of the courtiers was a perpetual menace to her, on the other 
hand she had increasing reason to fear the fanatical enthusiasm 
of the populace. With the spring, however, came the long- 
awaited chance of resuming the campaign, and as news now 
arrived that the Duke of Burgundy was preparing to lay siege 
to Compiegne, the Maid determined to hasten to its defence. 
She reached the town on May 24,^ at sunrise. That same 
evening she attempted a sortie ; whether by error or by 
malicious intention, the gates were shut against her ; her 
retreat was cut off, and she was taken prisoner by the Burgun- 
dians. Then for several months she was dragged from prison 
to prison ; after which she was sold for 10,000 livres to the 
English, who meanwhile were mad to get her into their power. 

More than a year elapsed between the Maid's capture before 
the walls of Compiegne and the closing act of the tragedy at 
Rouen ; and during that time not a single effort, military 
or diplomatic, was made by Charles or by any of his coun- 
sellors to save her from her fate. Such monstrous ingratitude 
and cowardice seem almost incredible ; but it remains beyond 
dispute that the base-minded King and those about him, 
having been rescued from their difficulties by her energy and 
courage, were now actually glad of the opportunity of washing 
their hands of her and of proving to the world that they had 

' This seems the correct date, but the 23rd and the 25th are also given. 

179 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

no need of her after all. This is attested by the fact that 
after her death it was made part of the official policy as far 
as possible to forget her ; her name being omitted, for instance, 
from documents in which God was praised for the victories 
He had granted to the royal arms.^ 

The way was thus left clear for the English to wreak the 
full measure of their hatred upon her. It served their nefarious 
purposes to put her case into the hands of the ecclesiastical 
authorities, and she was accordingly tried at Rouen before 
the tribunal of the Bishop of Beauvais, a wretched creature 
of her enemies, on four different charges — the practice of 
magic, disobedience to her parents, the use of male attire, 
and heresy. The proceedings opened on January 9, 1431, 
and lasted for 114 days, - during which the simple-minded 
peasant girl, shamelessly abandoned by those who should have 
suf>ported her, was subjected in endless cross-examinations of 
learned theologians and casuists to every refinement of mental 
and* moral torture which their erudition and subtlety could 
devise. Bewildered, exhausted, almost maddened by the pro- 
tracted strain, Jeanne at length, in order to escape the penalty 
of death by fire of which she was found worthy, blindly con- 
sented to yield at all points to her judges' demands. She 
therefore made public recantation of all her pretensions to 
a divine mission and sought peace with the Church ; and this 
done, she was sentenced to be imprisoned for life and fed on 
bread and water. But the implacable English were not yet 
satisfied. They were determined that the girl should be sent 
to her death. That this purpose might be compassed, however, 
it was necessary that some capital charge should be proved 
against her. Such a charge was devised by a piece of diabolical 
trickery. The woman's raiment which she had resumed was 
taken from her and her male attire was left in its place ; 
and when, in order to defend herself from the insults of the 
five Englishmen who had been set to guard and spy upon 
her, she was compelled to adopt the discarded costume, she 

^ See Petit de JuUeville's Joan of A re (English trans.), in " The Saints " series, 
pp. 59, 60, 87-90. 

180 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

was accused of relapse. So her enemies triumphed ; the capital 
sentence was pronounced ; and on May 30, 143 1, she was 
burned to death in the market-place at Rouen. 

A grim detail may be added to close this pitiful story. 
Twenty-five years later, the iniquitous proceedings which had 
sent her to the stake having been ' revised ' by a commission 
appointed for the purpose, a judgment was delivered which 
absolutely annulled all the findings of the Bishop of Beauvais' 
tribunal, cancelled the sentence pronounced upon her, and 
rehabilitated her memory. A tardy reparation, surely ! 

No authentic portrait of Jeanne Dare exists, and such verbal 
descriptions as have reached us are vague and often contra- 
dictory. But it seems that we are safe in picturing her as a 
simple peasant girl, in whom the natural strength and the 
homely virtues of her stock were conspicuous. Of one thing 
at least we may be certain. Hers was an essentially womanly 
character. There was nothing masculine about her ; in all 
her tastes and sympathies she was as far as possible removed 
from the conventional idea of the Amazon. She had no love 
of adventure or the chase ; her disposition was the reverse 
of martial ; and so tender was her heart that in the thick of a 
battle she would pause to tend a fallen foe. She did what 
she did without a single thought of self or personal glory, 
because, as she believed, it was God's purpose that France 
should be saved through her. 

It is possible that her romantic story, the glamour of her 
personality, and her brilliant immediate successes may lead 
us to over-estimate the actual importance of her work. It 
must not be forgotten that an English rally followed her death 
and that the war continued for more than twenty years. 
At the same time it does not seem extravagant to say that, 
all reaction notwithstanding, what she achieved exercised a 
permanent influence over the fortunes of her country. In 
making this statement I am not, of course, thinking mainly 
of the relief of Orleans and the coronation of Charles. These 
were only incidents. I am thinking of the moral effect pro- 
duced by her — of the revival of patriotism which was brought 

181 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

about by her appearance, and of the marvellous way in which 
she transmitted to the French people the high faith and 
enthusiasm with which she was herself inspired. It was in 
part at least the strength of the popular sentiment which she 
both elicited and directed that made the English dream of 
supremacy on French soil henceforth impossible. 

The End of the Hundred Years' War ' 

There is little of interest in the story of the closing stages 
of the long war. Young Henry was crowned at Paris on 
December i6, 143 1 ; but how little this meant as a counter- 
blast to the coronation of Charles at Reims is shown by the 
fact that the ceremony was performed by an English prelate 
and that not a single French .prince lent his presence. Several 
important cities, including Chartres, fell to the French during 
the -^ following year; but the English sustained a far more 
severe blow by the rupture of their alliance with Burgundy, 
and the Duke's reconciliation with the King of France (1435). 
The restoration of friendly relations between the two long 
hostile parties whose quarrels had filled the country with 
civil war meant the ruin of English interests. A fortnight 
after the ratification of the Treaty of Arras, by which this 
peace was formally secured, the Duke of Bedford died, his 
end being undoubtedly hastened by vexation at the miscarriage 
of his plans. Divided councils at home delayed the appoint- 
ment of his successor to the French Regency, and in the mean- 
time the French captured Paris (1436). The new Regents — 
first Richard, Duke of York, then the Earl of Warwick, and 
then the Duke of York again — found themselves compelled 
to act wholly on the defensive. The English themselves]J|had 
by this time Jgr own thoroughly weary of the spirited foreign 
policy initiated by Henry V for purposes of his own, and 
domestic troubles made them anxious for peace. But they 
still obstinately refused to abate their claims by acknowledging 
Charles as King. Thus things remained for a time at a stand- 
still. Then a crisis was precipitated by the pillage by an 
English force of the rich manufacturing town of Fougeres, in 
182 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

Brittany (1449). Charles and the Duke of Brittany proceeded 
to reprisals, and it was soon open war again between the two 
countries. Rouen was taken ; Fougeres recovered ; by the 
end of the year nearly the whole of Normandy was in the 
power of the French ; in the August of the year following 
Cherbourg, the last BngUsh stronghold in the duchy, sur- 
rendered. The loss of Normandy was quickly followed by 
that of Guyenne and Gascony ; and when on October 19, 
1453, Charles VII made a triumphant entry into Bordeaux 
the Hundred Years' War was practically over, though it was 
not till 1492 that the Treaty of Staples definitely established 
peace. Of all their great possessions in France of only thirty 
years before, Calais now alone remained in English hands. 



183 



'))t f^.- 



CHAPTER V 

FRANCE DURING THE HUNDRED 
YEARS' WAR 

IT would be difficult to paint in colours too dark the con- 
dition of France during the greater portion of the period 
now under review. The unhappy country was shaken to 
its foundations by repeated shocks of disaster, and from 
time to time it seemed as if- no earthly power could save it 
from utter collapse. Foreign armies again and again swept 
over^ it, intent on conquest and plunder. Twice it was dis- 
membered by shameful treaties of peace and some of its 
fairest provinces were given over to alien rule. The fierce 
feuds of rival factions, often blazing out into open war, still 
further intensified the general confusion and misery. To all 
these evils, moreover, have to be added those arising from 
the disorders bred by the long war. French and English sol- 
diers were alike guilty of license and brutality, and it mattered 
little to the wretched peasantry whom they robbed and mal- 
treated whether their sufferings were caused by professed 
friends or avowed foes. With every fresh truce immense 
numbers of mercenaries of many nationalities, their occupation 
gone, were let loose upon the land to wreck and riot as they 
chose ; their ranks were swollen by thousands of adventurers 
and camp-followers of the lowest kinds ; while many nobles 
joined their companies, lured by the love of booty and by 
the attractions of a life which to their turbulent spirits seemed 
" bonne et belle." ^ Neither person nor property was safe ; 
robberies, outrages, murders were things of daily occurrence ; 
the very churches were turned into fortresses, and on their 

1 This is the phrase which Froissart puts into the mouth of one of the 
most notorious captains of these grandes compagnies. 
184 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

towers sentinels were posted to watch for approaching enemies 
or marauders. Far and wide the land was waste ; at one 
time, it was said, a man might travel from the sea-coast to 
the borders of I^orraine and find nothing but burnt homes 
and desolate fields ; night by night the wolves came and 
ravaged even the outskirts of Paris itself. Meanwhile, the 
Treasury being everlastingly drained dry by the demands of 
war and the prodigalities of improvident rulers, desperate 
remedies were resorted to, with results which only blind 
unwisdom could have failed to foresee. Thus, to cite a single 
case only, Philippe VI, to meet an immediate emergency, 
established a Government monopoly in salt — an expedient 
which led Edward III to call him punningly the real rot salique. 
This gabelle, as it was called,^ was meant at first to be only 
temporary, but it was declared a permanent impost by 
Charles V ; and here we have the beginning of that hated 
tax which was to be an instrument of tyranny down to the 
time of the Revolution. 

Such being the social conditions of the period, it is not 
surprising that the country seethed in unrest. Toward the 
end of the reign of Philippe VI a fearful pestilence known as 
the Black Death, which carried off, it is estimated, a full 
third of the entire population, led to an outburst of religious 
fanaticism strangely symptomatic of the state of the popular 
mind. Bands of flagellants marched through France, lashing 
their naked bodies with heavy scourges and crying aloud 
that their blood would mingle with that of Christ for the 
salvation of the world. At the same time the despair of 
the ignorant and superstitious masses found vent in wild 
accusations against the Jews of poisoning the wells and thus 
spreading the plague, and ruthless massacres in many districts 
were the result. 

Popular Risings against. the Government 

Ten years later, while Jean le Bon was a prisoner of war 
in England and Charles the Dauphin was ruling in his stead, 
* From the I^ow lyatin gabulum, a gift. 

i8s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Paris became the centre of serious political trouble. The 
populace, already driven to desperation by ever-increasing 
burdens of taxation and by the misgovernment which left 
them defenceless victims of the general anarchy, now broke 
into open violence. They found an energetic and capable 
leader in the provost of the city ifttienne Marcel, who had 
previously made himself prominent in various movements for 
reform. He began by calling together an army representing 
all the various interests of the capital, and at the head of 
this he went straight to the Dauphin's palace, penetrated into 
his private apartments, and roundly demanded of him that 
he should fulfil his duty as the protector of the people. Angry 
words passed, inflamed by which Marcel's followers threw 
themselves upon the two principal advisers of the Dauphin 
and murdered them where they stood. Then, hastening to 
the Hotel de Ville, Marcel reported what had happened to an 
excited multitude which was there awaiting his return. Insur- 
rection now gathered to a head, and the situation was rendered 
more dangerous by a rising of the wretched peasantry, who 
more than any other class of the community groaned beneath 
the unchecked evils of the time. This Jacquerie,^ as it was 
called, spread rapidly from the Ile-de-France, where it origi- 
nated, north and east ; and the fast-gathering crowds, hungry, 
ragged, reckless, and armed with such weapons as they could 
lay their hands on — ^knives, scythes, sticks, stones — attacked 
the castles of the nobility, and slew without pity or discrimina- 
tion of age or, sex. The nobles, thoroughly alarmed, thereupon 
formed a powerful combination, and, meeting the forces of the 
Jacquerie at Meaux, routed them with tremendous slaughter, 
afterward destroying their villages with fire and sword. A 
little later, intriguing with Charles of Navarre to put him on 
the throne of France, fitienne Marcel was caught in the trap 
of a counterplot and slain. 

Another popular rising in 1382, known as the revolt of the 

* From ' Jacques Bonhomme/ the popular name for the French peasant. 
It appears first, it would seem, in the chronicles of the fourteenth- century 
writer Jean de Venette. 
186 




**^ ' -tut Wr '*^-' '1 " ■ 



'-^ ,.'• /ift'O' '.'S^T' .--**^^?t. "f". ^iS'-a . 



20. The Pi,ace de Gr§;ve in the Fifteenth Century 186 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

Maillotins,^ showed that, though sheer force might triumph 
for a time over an ill-organized democracy, popular discontent 
continued unabated. Beginning in Paris, this too soon swept 
to other cities — ^to Chalons, Reims, Sens, Troyes, Orleans — 
while concurrently disturbances of artisans and peasants broke 
out in the south. Some years later — ^in 1413 — the capital was 
again the theatre of an outburst of mob-violence, which was 
in part connected with the feud of the Burgundians and the 
Armagnacs. A band composed of the lowest dregs of the 
populace, and known as the Cabochiens, from their ring- 
leader, one Caboche, a flayer of slaughtered animals, held the 
city for a time under a reign of terror. Scenes of shocking 
brutality were enacted daily ; the insurgents seized the Bastille, 
forced themselves into the King's presence, compelled him to 
adopt their badge — the white scarf — ^imprisoned unpopular 
princes and ministers of State. The disturbance was finally 
quelled by the joint efforts of the Armagnacs and the University 
of Paris, and order was restored under the Duke of Orleans. 

Efforts toward Reform 

In the social history of France during the Hundred Years* 
War a large place is thus filled by the widespread misery of 
the people and the dangerous paroxysms of passion which 
were the inevitable result. In the meantime such practical 
attempts as were made to grapple with consequences by 
getting down to their causes were chiefly connected with the 
activity of the States-General and the influence of the middle 
classes. The broad lines of the movement for reform may 
here be just indicated by reference to a few of its principal 
phases. Thus, for example, in 1338 an assembly decreed 
that the King should impose no extraordinary taxes without 
the consent of the three Estates ; a provision which Philippe 
and sifterward Jean le Bon managed by subterfuge to turn 
into a dead letter. In 135 1, during a season of great financial 

^ From the maillets, or mallets, which had been stored up in the H6tel de 
Ville against a possible attack from the i^nglish, and with which the rioters 
armed themselves. 

187 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

distress, the States-General lodged various complaints against 
the King and extracted various promises from him of imme- 
diate amendment in administration ; but these promises were 
never redeemed. Then, in 1356 and 1357 far stronger pro- 
tests were made against waste and misgovernment, demands 
were formulated for a fixed standard of currency ; and while 
the assembly engaged to provide the King with funds neces- 
sary for the defence of the realm, it insisted also that the 
moneys now to be raised should be entrusted to specially 
nominated receivers. At this time, moreover, a commission 
was appointed to draw up a programme of reform, and requisi- 
tions were made that several of the King's officers should be 
brought to trial, that deputies (reformateurs) should be sent 
out to inquire into administrative abuses in the provinces, 
and that a permanent Grand Council should be created, 
consisting of four prelates, twelve nobles, and twelve members 
of the Third Estate, to assist in the government of the country. 
The , Dauphin, who on his father's capture at Poitiers had 
assumed the title of I^ieutenant and the headship of affairs, 
took alarm at these radical proposals, and at once dissolved 
the gathering. But in the March of the following year — 
1357 — a new assembly was convened, one of the moving 
forces in which was fitienne Marcel ; and now a great ordinance 
was prepared and presented, the sixty-one articles of which 
included fundamental reforms in finance, the executive, the 
army, justice, and general administration. This ordinance 
was accepted by the Dauphin, only to be revoked the next 
year, when he announced his intention of ruling independently 
and according to his own discretion. An edict which he issued 
at the same time for another alteration in the value of the 
currency was a chief cause of the rising in Paris under Marcel 
of which I have already spoken. The struggle of the Dauphin 
with Marcel to some extent epitomizes the struggle which 
was now in progress between the royal power and the demo- 
cracy; and though Marcel's downfall was due immediately to 
intrigue, it is well to emphasize the fact that his ideas of popu- 
lar government were several centuries in advance of the time. 
188 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Charles' policy then and later was largely shaped, under the 
influence of the legists, against the States-General, of whose 
encroaching claims he was suspicious. But the menace of 
feudalism was still strong enough to make the Crown anxious 
for the support of the country at large ; and under Charles' 
successors the States-General and the States-Provincial (or 
local, assemblies) continued active in their efforts for reform. 

The Influence of the Middle Classes 

In other ways the increasing power of the middle classes 
was manifest. As soon as he had freed himself from the 
tutelage of his uncles, whom the people hated, Charles VI 
gathered about him a number of sound business men of humble 
origin — Bureau de la Riviere, Pierre de Vilaines, Jean de 
Noviant, Jean de Montaigu, Jouvenel des Ursins — who 
adidressed themselves resolutely to the task of bringing order 
out of the chaos of the country. The nobles, who were of 
course jealous of their supremacy in the King's councils, 
sneeringly called them the Marmousets ; but we have already 
noted in passing that under these ' Monkeys ' France enjoyed 
for the first time for many years a short period of internal 
peace. Unfortunately, the collapse of the King's mind brought 
that period to a sudden close ; the princes recovered their 
power, the Marmousets were overthrown, and the land was 
soon torn by the strife of Burgundian and Armagnac. But 
Charles VII in his turn was shrewd enough to select his chief 
counsellors from the ranks of the prominent commoners, and 
it was through their instrumentality that the legal, financial, 
and administrative reforms which give importance to his 
reign were brought about. Noteworthy in particular among 
these men of the time was Jacques Coeur, the great merchant 
of Bourges, whose ambition it was to develop the foreign 
commerce of France and to break down the monopoly of 
Venice in the East. Charles made him his Treasurer, and in 
that capacity he did excellent service, not only administering 
the finances of the realm with much sagacity, but also putting 
his own vast wealth at the King's disposal at times of urgent 
190 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

need. His riches and his power naturally aroused the envy 
of the great nobles of the Court. He had, it is true, a powerful 
friend in the King's wise and beautiful mistress, Agn^s Sorel, 
and so long as she lived his position was secure. But her 
sudden death in 1450 removed his main defence against the 
machinations of his enemies, the dastardly King abandoning 
him to his fate as he had already abandoned Jeanne Dare. 
By plots and concocted charges his ruin was accomplished ; 
his property was confiscated and he was thrown into prison. 
Through the Pope's intervention, however, his life was spared, 
and he was ultimately permitted to find an asylum beyond 
the borders of the country he had served only too well. Nor 
was this the only way in which the selfish nobility showed their 
disapproval of the new influences in the politics of the time, 
which, as they perceived, were bound to work to their dis- 
advantage. Their futile revolt, the so-called ' Praguerie,' ^ 
had already (1440) given proof of the tenacity with which 
they still clung to the traditions of their power. 

The Decline of the Feudal Nobility 

The steady waning of that power was none the less one 
of the principal features of the period of the Hundred Years' 
War. That war itself directly hastened the decay of the 
feudal aristocracy. Their immense losses at Crecy, Poitiers, 
and Agincourt, where the very flower of their chivalry was 
destroyed, greatly affected both their numerical strength and 
their prestige. The old military basis of their supremacy 
was also undermined by the new methods of fighting which 
now began to determine the issue of the field. The splendid 
victories of Kdward III, the Black Prince, and Henry V were 
essentially victories of English bowmen over French knight- 
hood ; the common foot-soldier, first with his bow, afterward 
with his gun, showed himself more than a match for the mail- 
clad noble with his lance and battle-axe. Indirectly, too, 
the spread of the spirit of nationality, which the Maid of 

* The excitement caused by the case of Huss at Prague explains why any 
kind of revolt was, for the moment, called a ' Praguerie.* 

191 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Orleans had helped to awaken and to which she had appealed, 
was fatal to the continuance of the separatist claims of the 
great territorial princes, who more and more came to be 
recognized as refractory forces in the gradual welding together 
of the realm. The transformation of the army from a hetero- 
geneous mass made up of bodies of fighting men, each under 
its own leader, into a compact, homogeneous whole depending 
immediately upon the king is also a fact of capital importance 
in the history of the decay of feudalism. This transformation 
was accomplished by a long series of changes and reforms, 
and it would take too much space to follow it here in detail ; 
but, speaking in very general terms, it may be said that the 
experiment of Charles V in 1374 in the creation of a standing 
army was completed by Charles VII in 1445 when he established 
his fifteen companies of ordnance. 

In other ways the power of the feudal nobles was gradually 
broken and their former prerogatives gathered up by the 
royal authority. The right of coining money was taken from 
them by Philippe VI and Jean le Bon ; the right of raising 
troops and waging private war by Charles VII ; the right of 
independent taxation and the administration of justice by 
the same King. Even their castles were attacked by a decree 
of Charles V, who ordered the demolition of such as were not 
necessary for the defence of the realm. The extension to the 
middle classes of various privileges — such as that of wearing 
gold spurs — of which they had hitherto enjoyed the monopoly, 
and the granting by Charles V of patents of nobility to men 
of importance in civic affairs, may also be mentioned among 
the many signs of the passing of the old feudal order of French 
society. 

From the point of view of royalty itself the period of the 
Hundred Years' War was one of loss followed by recovery. 
Under the first Valois the Crown shared in the general decadence 
of the country, and its very existence was imperilled during 
the protracted insanity of Charles VI. But in the later years 
of Charles VII the long-interrupted progress was resumed. 
The royal domain also increased rapidly through confiscations, 
192 



THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

purchases, escheats, and inheritances, and at length, of course, 
by the wresting from the KngHsh of the large territories which 
they had formerly possessed on French soil. One acquisition 
is specially interesting^ — that of Dauphine, in the region of the 
lyOwer Rhone, which was bought by Phihppe VI for 120,000 
florins. Dauphine was so named from the dolphin which 
figured on its crest, whence also the lord was himself called 
the Dauphin ; and it was one of the conditions of the transfer 
to the Crown that the eldest son of the reigning king should 
henceforth be known by this title. The royal authority, while 
thus steadily gaining over the power of the old nobility, also 
asserted itself against that of the Papacy. By the Pragmatic 
Sanction of 1438 Charles VII strongly maintained the inde- 
pendent rights of the Gallican Church against the universal 
ecclesiastical sovereignty claimed by Rome. Here we perceive 
the working of the spirit of nationalism under another form. 

In general, then, it may be said that the period of the Hundred 
Years' War, despite the anarchy by which it was largely charac- 
terized, was one of importance in the evolution of the French 
monarchy and of the French people. New conditions were now 
emerging, the full significance of which will become increasingly 
apparent in the sequel. 



N 193 



CHAPTER VI 

LOUIS XI 

I461-I483 

THE last years of Charles VII's reign were embittered by 
the unfilial conduct of his eldest son. Alread}^ as a 
youth of seventeen I^ouis had taken part in the Praguerie, 
and though, when this was .crushed, he craved and received 
his father's pardon, his turbulent spirit made lasting harmony 
impossible. For a time, indeed, a safety-valve for his feverish 
energy was provided by expeditions against the Armagnacs 
and the Swiss, in which he acquitted himself with great vigour 
and courage. But fresh troubles soon arose. On the death 
of his first wife, the gentle Margaret of Scotland — '' Une prin- 
cesse," says Monstrelet, " parfaicte aux beautes de I'ame et 
du corps '* — he angered his father by marrying, without even 
asking his consent, the daughter of the Duke of Savoy. He 
also intrigued against the King's ministers, flouted the royal 
authority whenever it conflicted with his own will, and added 
to his offences by his discourteous behaviour toward the royal 
favourite, Agnes Sorel. His relations with his father being 
thus strained to breaking-point, lyOtds retired to Dauphine, 
with the government of which he had been entrusted, and 
there assumed all the rights of an independent sovereign : 
coining money, levying taxes, receiving embassies, concluding 
treaties, and on his own initiative founding a university at 
Valence and a Parliament at Grenoble. The party of his 
enemies, with the Count of Dammartin, the King's favourite 
adviser, at their head, was strong at Court, and Charles was 
urged to punish his son's insubordination. On pretext that 
the Dauphinois had appealed to him against excessive taxa- 
tion, he accordingly sent a peremptory message requiring lyouis 
194 



LOUIS XI 

to appear in person before him. Well aware of the danger 
of his position, and warned by the recent downfall of Jacques 
Coeur, who had been his very good friend, I^ouis not unnatu- 
rally refused. Upon this Charles despatched a large army to 
Dauphine under Dammartin's command, and lyouis was driven 
to flight (1456). Writing to his father that he proposed to 
join a crusade against the Turks, he actually sought refuge with 
Philip, Duke of Burgundy (called Philip the Good), who 
received him with the most marked demonstrations of friend- 
ship, gave him the castle of Genappe, near Brussels, for his 
residence, and bestowed upon him for his maintenance a 
pension of 30,000 crowns. " Our brother Philip has taken 
home a fox who will eat his chickens," was the King's caustic 
commentary upon these events. 

Safe at Genappe, I^ouis busied himself with intrigues which 
kept the Court in a state of perpetual apprehension and unrest. 
Dreading treachery, even among those who stood nearest to 
him, and suspecting poison in every dish, the miserable King, 
in whom a trace of his father's madness seems by this time 
to have appeared, refused all food. When at length his 
obstinacy was overcome starvation had completed the ruin 
of a constitution already enfeebled by sensual excess, and 
in July 1461 he died of an abscess in the throat. Such was 
the wretched end of a monarch who figures in history as Charles 
the Victorious. During his reign of thirty-nine years France, 
as we have seen, recovered in some measure from the disastrous 
consequences of the Hundred Years' War. But little of the 
credit of such recovery can be given to the indolent and pleasure- 
loving King. 

Anxious to pose as the friend and protector of the new 
sovereign, Philip the Good accompanied lyouis to Reims with 
an immense and splendidly equipped retinue of knights, pages, 
and men-at-arms, and it was from his hands at the ceremony 
of coronation that lyouis actually received the crown. King 
and Duke also entered Paris together in a stately proces- 
sion, in which, it was remarked, the Duke made by far the 
more imposing display. During the month's festivities which 

19s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

followed, his magnificence and lavish hospitality created 
wonder and enthusiasm among the populace of the city. 
Always indifferent to dress and ceremonial, lyOuis meanwhile 
showed no resentment at being thus effaced. He was for the 
moment willing enough to conciliate his powerful vassal, whose 
various requests he granted without demur. But when Philip 
and his followers returned home they soon realized that they 
had been cajoled by promises which were little more than 
empty words. Having secured his place on the throne, and 
being determined to be King in reality as well as in name, 
I^ouis now entered upon a course of policy which was shortly 
to bring him into conflict not only with the Duke of Burgundy, 
but also with the other great nobles who looked upon the Duke 
as in some sort their head. - 

Lcyuis XI AND THE Feudal Nobility 

The difficulties which I^ouis had to face at the opening of 
his seign were enormous. So far as external relations were 
concerned, indeed, the times were favourable, for France had 
little to fear from foreign Powers, since Italy had long been 
impotent, Spain was a house divided against itself, Germany 
was in a state bordering upon anarchy, and — most important 
of all — England was distracted by civil war. But conditions 
at home called for a clear head and a strong hand. The chief 
danger lay in the still formidable feudal aristocracy, the leaders 
of which were ambitious of regaining their former ascendancy 
in the land. Remembering I^ouis* antagonism to his father 
and his long association with Philip the Good, they saw in 
him at first a possible ally. But they were soon undeceived. 
The King, it is true, behaved with marked consideration to 
some of the most prominent among them — ^to the Count of 
Foix, for example, the most powerful noble in the south, 
and to the families of Burgundy and Brittany. But none 
the less he asserted his royal authority in many unexpected 
ways ; and when he called upon the nobles at large to pay 
their feudal dues and bear their part in the general taxation, 
and even, for the protection of agriculture, deprived them 
196 



LOUIS XI 

of the privilege of hunting, except by royal licence, they resented 
his encroachment upon what they regarded as their immemorial 
rights ; and before long their irritation broke out into open 
revolt. 

The League of Public Welfare 

Unfortunately, lyouis at the same time weakened his position 
by hasty and ill-advised measures which spread discontent 
among all classes throughout the country. Some decrease 
in taxation had been confidently expected from him. His 
pressing need of money compelled him, on the contrary, to 
raise the taille perpetuelle from 1,200,000 to 3,000,000 livres. 
Insurrections followed in Rouen, Alen9on, Aurillac, and Reims, 
the leaders of which were punished by hanging or mutilation. 
Believing that it gave too much power to the clergy, and 
indirectly to the aristocracy, he revoked the Pragmatic Sanction 
in defiance of the remonstrances of the Parliament of Paris. 
He also demanded of the clergy a full statement of all their 
possessions and of the titles by which they were held. He 
forbade the University of Paris to interfere in the affairs of 
the kingdom and the city. He curtailed the jurisdiction of 
the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse by establishing another 
Parliament at Bordeaux. By such despotic acts he contrived 
within four years to put almost the whole of France — ^the 
aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the clergy, the men of learning, 
and the principal lawyers — against him. This universal dis- 
satisfaction gave the nobles their opportunity. A coalition 
of malcontents was formed which called itself the Ligue du 
Bien Public, and proclaimed that its object was to compel 
the King to redress the grievances of the country. As lyOuis 
veiy properly pointed out in letters which he caused to be 
published throughout the land, the members of the I^eague 
had never shown much concern for the public welfare. The 
title and ostensible purpose were of course only a thin disguise. 
Yet it was a sign of political progress that this self-seeking feudal 
organization felt it necessary to justify its existence by a show 
of patriotism. 

197 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The actual trouble began with Burgundy. In a personal 
interview Louis induced Philip, whose powers were now failing 
and who was as usual in want of money, to restore to him on 
payment ,of 400,000 crowns a number of towns along the 
Somme which Charles VII had ceded to Burgundy under the 
Treaty of Arras. Philip's headstrong son, Charles, Count of 
Charolais, was furious when he learned of this arrangement, 
and at once began to stir up the discontented nobles. He 
found a ready ally in Frangois II, Duke of Brittany, who, 
like the Duke of Burgundy, was practically an independent 
sovereign, and who, with other grievances against the King, 
was specially annoyed because lyouis had forced him to permit 
appeals from his own Parliament to that of Paris. Other 
nobles hastened to join the alliance, which soon numbered 
muore than five hundred princes and barons. Chief among 
these, besides the Count of Charolais and the Duke of Brittany, 
were the Duke of Bourbon and the King's vain and foolish 
young brother, Charles, Duke of Berry. 

At the outset I^ouis tried to throw oil on the troubled waters. 
He convoked at Rouen an assembly of the deputies of the 
northern cities, and explained to them at length the grounds 
and objects of his policy. He afterward called a conference 
of the nobility at Tours, and in an eloquent speech set forth 
what he had done to improve the condition of the country 
and insisted upon the need of union between the aristocracy 
and the Crown. Those who heard him were loud in their 
protestations of loyalty. But scarcely had the gathering 
dissolved before the lycague was under arms. , 

The King's position was now critical, for the total strength 
of the confederates was great, and treason was soon busy 
among those of his following in whom he had believed that 
implicit confidence might be placed. Realizing, however, that 
scattered forces and divided counsels would be likely to impede 
his enemies* effective action, he hastened to take the initiative 
in the hostilities, his plan being to destroy the I^eague in the 
south before the northern leaders were ready to take the field. 
His promptness and vigour gave him at first a substantial 
198 



LOUIS XI 

advantage. But meanwhile the Count of Charolais made a 
rapid and triumphant march upon Paris, before the walls of 
of which he was presently joined by the combined armies of 
the Dukes of Brittany and Berry. Failing in his attempt to 
reach the capital before the allies, I^ouis found his way blocked, 
and against his wishes was thus driven to risk a general engage- 
ment. On July i6, 1465, a battle was fought at Montlhery, 
on the plain of I^ongjumeau, which ended at nightfall with 
no decisive result. But lyouis gained this much, that, the 
road being cleared, he was two days later able to enter Paris. 
On August 10 he left for Normandy to collect reinforcements, 
returning on the 28th with 12,000 men, artillery, munitions, 
and an ample supply of flour. Notwithstanding this accession 
of strength, however, his case became more and more precarious. 
News came that first Pontoise, then Rouen, then ifivreux and 
Caen, had opened their gates to the enemy. In Paris itself 
the I^eague had many adherents ; signs of disloyalty became 
increasingly manifest ; the King no longer knew whom he 
could trust. His only hope lay in the condition of the allies, 
among whom the inevitable dissensions had already appeared, 
and who were, moreover, beginning to suffer from lack of 
provisions. Perceiving the growing weakness of his enemies, 
lyouis accordingly opened up negotiations with the Count of 
Charolais. Two months were spent in pourparlers and skir- 
mishes. But in the end the King had to yield. A truce was 
proclaimed at Conflans on October 2 ; a definite treaty was 
signed on the 29th at Saint-Maur-les-Fosses. By this treaty — 
" the most humiliating that ever King of France entered into 
with his subjects " ^ — all the original demands of the princes, 
formerly rejected as exorbitant, were granted, the insurgent 
chiefs being, as it would seem, richly rewarded for their dis- 
loyalty. To name the most important of the provisions only, 
the Count of Charolais recovered the towns on the Somme 
which had been ceded by his father ; the Duke of Brittany 
received the counties of Btampes and Montfort, and was 
granted the sovereign rights which he had claimed, including 
1 I/avallee, Histoire des Frangais, t. ii, p. 193. 

199 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

exemption from appeal to the Parliament of Paris ; the Duke 
of Berry was made Duke of Normandy, with a sovereign court 
at Rouen ; the Duke of Orleans was appointed to the govern- 
ment of Guyenne, and obtained a share in the royal taxes levied 
in his domains ; the Duke of Nemours became Governor of 
Paris and the Ile-de-France. Thus, as Comines puts it, " les 
princes butin^rent le monarque et le mirent au pillage." Other 
leaders obtained concessions of territory, of privileges, of 
money, while the late King's ministers, whom lyouis had 
dismissed, including his old enemy, the Count of Dammartin, 
who had been active in the insurgent cause, were either 
reinstated or placated with gifts and pensions. To make good 
the idea of ' public welfare,' for which the I^eague had osten- 
sibly been organized, a clause was also inserted in the treaty 
that a commission of thirty-six notables — ^twelve knights, 
twelve prelates, and twelve judges of the Supreme Court — 
should be instituted to inquire into and remedy the abuses 
of which popular complaint had been made. How little the 
lycague troubled about this part of the treaty was, however, 
shown by the fact that the appointment of the members of the 
commission was left to the King himself. 

The first struggle of I^ouis with the feudal nobility thus 
ended in a very complete victory for the nobility, and for the 
moment the progress of the monarchy suffered a serious check. 
But lyouis was not the man to regard engagements as binding 
beyond the point at which they could be practically enforced. 
After signing the Treaty of Saint-Maur he made a great show 
of friendship toward those who had wrung it from him, even 
offering the Count of Charolais the hand of his daughter Anne, 
then three years old. But he did not in the least intend that 
his defeat should be final, and if he appeared to accept it in 
good part he was only waiting his time. Conditions, as he 
was quick to perceive, were after all in his favour. At once 
greedy and stupid, his enemies had no settled policy to oppose 
to his own. As Henri Martin has pointed out, while the barons 
of England, after their victory over the Crown, had become 
a definite aristocracy and a coherent political organization, 
200 





i-r 
o 
W 

w 
W 

W 

a 




^r>^ 








LOUIS XI 

the French princes cared only for their independent power, 
and save in their opposition to the throne had few interests 
in common.^ This want of union was a radical weakness, and 
it was the more dangerous to them because their determination 
to remain petty sovereigns was in obvious antagonism to that 
growing sense of nationality which, as we have seen, had been 
greatly fostered by the Hundred Years' War. 

Louis' Struggle with Charles the Bold 

The Ivcague dissolved, it was lyouis' policy to prevent its 
re-formation. He therefore sought to secure the allegiance 
of some of its most formidable members by secret gifts and 
favours. At the same time he did all in his power to win over 
the middle classes of the towns, and especially those of Paris. 
His first great object, however, was the recovery of Normandy, 
a province of the utmost importance to the Crown both because 
it was a connecting link between the domains of Burgundy and 
Brittany, and because it might at any moment lay France 
open to the English. Opportunity soon offered. While the 
Count of Charolais' hands were tied by insurrections in I/iege, 
Dinant, and Ghent, he purchased the Duke of Brittany's neu- 
trality for a sum of 120,000 crowns, and entered Normandy, 
which in a few weeks submitted entirely to his authority. This 
violation of the Treaty of Saint-Maur caused some commotion 
among the nobles, and the Count of Charolais, now Duke of 
Burgundy, and known as Charles le Terrible or le Temeraire 
(' the Bold '), formed a new coalition against the King (1468), 
finding a willing supporter in the Duke of Brittany, who had 
taken alarm at lyouis' success in Normandy, and an ally in 
Edward IV of England. Upon this Louis convened the States- 
General at Tours (taking care that the deputies chosen should 
be all on his side), and asked their counsel on three questions, 
namely, Did the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany owe alle- 
giance to the Crown like other vassals, or were they permitted 
to make alliances on their own account with foreigners ? 
Could Normandy be alienated from the Crown ? and Had the 
* Histoire de France, t. vi, p. 571. 

201 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

King provided sufficiently for his brother Charles by granting 
him a pension of 60,000 livres a year ? The States-General 
decided all these questions in the King's favour. This made 
Charles the Bold very angry ; but it suited his purpose to 
remain quiet until his marriage with the sister of the English 
King. Meanwhile I^ouis compelled the Duke of Brittany to 
sign a treaty in which he engaged to relinquish all alliances 
save that with the King of France. Then in October lyouis 
met Charles the Bold in a personal interview at Peronne. 
The meeting was most friendly, and negotiations began under 
favourable auspices. Unfortunately, however, news just then 
came of a fresh revolt in lyiege. Charles fell into a violent 
passion, openly accused the King of treacher^^ and, on pretext 
that he wished to prevent the escape of a thief who had stolen 
a ^casket of jewels, ordered the gates of the city and castle 
to be shut. lyouis thus found himself a prisoner in the power 
of his most deadly enemy. Every reader is familiar with the 
vivid description of this dramatic situation in the pages of 
Quentin Durward, and will remember that even Scott, whose 
antipathy to the King is sufficiently pronounced, admits that 
he did not lose his courage or presence of mind. For two days 
his fate trembled in the balance. Then Charles was persuaded 
by his council that he would lose rather than gain by the 
King's death. He therefore turned his advantage to account 
by extracting a treaty by which that of Saint-Maur was ratified 
in all that concerned the house of Burgundy, while the King's 
brother was to receive as his appanage the province of Cham- 
pagne, which, lying between Burgundy and Flanders, would 
serve to connect the two most important portions of Charles' 
dominions. lyouis also engaged to accompany Charles to 
lyiege, and was actually present at the capture and sack of 
a city which had been his faithful ally. 

Ivouis thus suffered a second rebuff at the hands of his 
powerful and ambitious vassal. But he was soon able to 
retrieve one of his mistakes. At their parting he had entrapped 
the Duke into an admission of his willingness that, if Charles 
of Berry would not accept Champagne, the matter might be 
202 



LOUIS XI 

settled in any other way that would be satisfactory to the 
young Prince. I^ouis thus regarded himself as relieved from 
the solemn oath which he had sworn to fulfil the treaty, and 
contrived to obtain his brother's consent to take Guyenne in 
place of Champagne. This, and the reconciliation of the 
brothers, which followed, were a severe blow to Charles the 
Bold. By supporting the Earl of Warwick in his intrigues 
against Edward IV, lyouis also sought to nullify Charles' English 
alliance. The submission of the Duke of Nemours, and the 
overthrow and flight of the Count of Armagnac, still further 
increased the isolation of Burgundy. 

A third coalition against I^ouis was formed in 147 1. A son 
had been born to him the year before, and Charles of Berry, 
now Duke of Guyenne, no longer heir to the throne, again 
went over to his brother's enemies. The ever restless Duke of 
Burgundy was only too glad to make capital out of his dis- 
content, and to cement their union offered him his only daughter 
in marriage. This would have meant the ultimate consolida- 
tion of Burgundy and Guyenne into a single dominion exceeding 
in extent, population, and wealth that of the King himself, 
and lyouis was naturally alarmed. Charles the Bold also 
sought the support of Edward IV, now firmly seated on the 
English throne, and of the King of Aragon. The discordant 
interests and cross-intrigues of the confederates, however, 
made joint action very difficult, and Charles in his embarrass- 
ment was wilHng to listen to overtures from lyouis for an 
alliance against the Dukes of Brittany and Guyenne, though 
he secretly assured both of them that as soon as his immediate 
objects were compassed he would repudiate his engagements 
with the King. But the death of the Duke of Guyenne still 
further dislocated his plans. The young Prince had been ill 
for some months, but his end was sudden, and there were 
rumours that he had been poisoned by his almoner. Furious 
at the miscarriage of his hopes, Charles thereupon issued a 
manifesto in which he accused the King of instigating the 
alleged crime, and, without waiting for the expiration of the 
truce between them,^marched through Picardy, ruthlessly 

203 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

burning and ravaging as he went. The little town of Nesle 
was the first to fall into his hands ; he ordered a general 
slaughter ; even the women and children who had taken 
refuge in the church were put to the sword ; and when he 
rode in, the blood flowing about his horse's fetlocks, he crossed 
himself and exclaimed : " This is a fine sight ! I have good 
butchers with me ! " Roye and Montdidier, yielded to him 
without resistance ; but Beauvais, though poorly fortified and 
ill-manned, unexpectedly blocked his way. Fired by the 
example of the captain of the garrison, lyouis de Balagny, the 
inhabitants armed in haste, and held the enemy at bay till 
relief came up, and much to his chagrin Charles was forced to 
raise the siege. In this heroic episode the women of the city 
played a prominent part ; one Jeanne I^aisne, called ' Hachette ' 
from the weapon which she carried, specially distinguishing 
herself by her courage and activity. lyouis showed his admira- 
tion and gratitude by instituting an annual procession in 
which the women were to have precedence of the men, and 
by marrying Jeanne to one of his officers ; in addition he 
exempted Beauvais from taxation. 

Charles the Bold continued his bloody march into Normandy, 
but, failing to join forces with the Duke of Brittany, then 
hard pressed by the King, was compelled to turn back. His 
turbulence, obstinacy, and cruelty were now beginning to 
disgust some of his most valuable adherents, several of whom, 
perceiving that his recklessness could end only in final disaster, 
forsook him and transferred their allegiance to the King. Among 
these was the famous chronicler Philippe de Comines, who had 
been his chamberlain, and was henceforth one of lyouis' most 
trusted advisers. I^ouis now concluded an advantageous peace 
with Brittany, and a truce was arranged with Charles the Bold. 

Charles' policy at this point underwent a significant change. 
Thus far he had been the leader of the malcontent French 
nobles in their struggle against the supremacy of the Crown. 
Notwithstanding temporary successes, it was now becoming 
increasingly evident that the Crown was too strong for them. 
He therefore directed his energies into another channel. He 
204 



LOUIS XI 

resolved by acquisition and consolidation to create a separate 
kingdom, and to rule over this as an independent king. Had 
his design prospered, it may be noted in passing, it would have 
meant the practical restoration of the old ' Middle Kingdom ' 
of lyotharingia between France and Germany. Parts of his 
vast but scattered dominions, it will be remembered, he held 
nominally as fiefs of the King of France, and other parts as 
fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. He now turned to the 
Emperor Frederick III, proposing that he should receive the 
kingly crown at the Emperor's hands in exchange for a marriage 
between his daughter and the Emperor's son, Maximilian. 
Duke and Emperor met to discuss the matter at Treves (1473), 
but the Emperor was unwilling to accede, and the conference, 
which lasted for five weeks, ended without result, though the 
Duke had been so certain of success that he had made elaborate 
preparations for his coronation. Thwarted in his purpose, and 
angry at being exposed to the ridicule of Europe, Charles was 
further irritated by news that a league, composed of the 
Archduke Sigismund, the Rhenish towns, the Swiss, and the 
King of France, was being formed against him (1474-75). 
Once more he sought the aid of England, and, prompted by 
him, in the summer of 1475, Edward IV, with a magnificent 
army, descended upon France. But I^ouis, though, as usual, 
unwilHng to fight, met the crisis with the diplomatic cleverness 
of which he was so great a master. He had little difficulty 
in convincing Edward that Charles was using him for his own 
private ends and was powerless to render him any effective 
help in the prosecution of the English claims ; after which he 
bought off the invader with an indemnity of 75,000 crowns, 
and the promise of an annual payment (which the French 
called pension and the English tribute) of 50,000 livres. This 
method of securing peace was both unheroic and costly. But 
Ivouis cared nothing either for the humihation or for the cost. 
He was satisfied with his success on one essential point. The 
EngUsh had come with formal demands, first for the whole 
of France as their rightful possession, and then for the restitu- 
tion of Normandy and Guyenne, and they had left the country 

205 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

without receiving an inch of French territory. Charles, who 
had tried in vain to interrupt the negotiations, then consented 
to make peace with I^ouis in order to be free to pursue his 
objects elsewhere. He overran Lorraine (1475) and invaded 
Switzerland (1476), crossing the Jura unopposed with an 
army of 20,000 well-equipped troops. His capture of Granson 
was accompanied by a signal act of perfidy : , he induced the 
garrison to surrender by promising them their lives, and then 
hanged them to a man. But his baseness was quickly punished. 
Two days later — on March 2 — ^the united forces of the Swiss 
reached the town ; Charles* army was saved from destruction 
only by flight, and all the wonderful treasures of plate and 
jewellery with which he travelled were carried away by the 
foe. An even more disastrous defeat awaited him a little 
lat^r at Morat, where it is estimated that he lost at least two- 
thirds of his men. This catastrophe paralysed his energies, 
and he retired to his castle near Pontarlier, where he spent two 
mon£hs savagely brooding over his own desperate case. Then 
news came that the young Duke of I^orraine, whose territory 
he had annexed, had laid siege to Nancy. This aroused him 
from his lethargy. Gathering together the wrecks of his 
army, he hurriedly marched to the relief of the city. He 
arrived to find that three days before it had capitulated to 
the enemy. The odds were now fatally against him, but, 
notwithstanding the entreaties of his few faithful advisers 
and the defection of his Italian mercenaries, he persisted in 
acting on the offensive. On Sunday, January 5, 1477, a 
battle was fought near Nancy which in a few hours ended in 
his utter rout. His own fate was for the moment a mystery. 
He had last been seen in the thick of the conflict fighting with 
reckless courage and inspiring his followers with word and 
example. At first it seemed possible that he was among the 
handful who had escaped slaughter or capture. But two days 
later his naked body, mangled almost beyond recognition, 
was discovered in the mud on the bank of a frozen brook. 
By the Duke of lyorraine's orders an honourable burial was 
given to his remains. 
206 



LOUIS XI 

So closed the stormy career of a man who may justly be 
described as the last great representative and defender of the 
old feudalism. Charles the Bold ^ was not without his good 
qualities. He was energetic and courageous ; he was sober 
and chaste ; he could upon occasion be both just and generous ; 
he had some taste for serious things. But he was passionate, 
violent, headstrong, brutal, and altogether untrustworthy. 
Even in the boasted ethics of chivalry he fell short, for he 
was treacherous, vindictive, and implacable. Relying wholly 
on brute force, he failed as a soldier because, despite his great 
personal prowess, he lacked the intellectual and moral qualities 
necessary for success in the art of war ; and his ultimate ruin 
was in large measure due to his reckless disregard for the 
elementary principles of generalship. Even more conspicuous 
was his incapacity as a statesman. His diplomacy was futile ; 
his policy, at once aggressive and vacillating, alienated even 
those whose interests he might have made his own ; and he 
showed no concern for his subjects and no genius for construc- 
tive rule. His fiery imagination was filled with grandiose 
dreams of wealth and power, but his vision went no farther 
than conquest and territorial aggrandizement, and he did 
nothing toward the creation of a coherent kingdom out of the 
patchwork of miscellaneous states over which he actually 
held sway. His downfall was thus symbolical of the final 
collapse not only of feudalism, but also of that entire conception 
of government of which feudalism had been the foundation 
and stay. 

I^ouis had apparently been a mere spectator of Charles' 
ruin. In reality he had done much to bring it about, for it 
was largely through his secret machinations that Charles had 
been entangled in his disputes with the Flemish towns and in 
the fatal quarrel with the Swiss. He did not attempt to hide 
his delight when he heard of the Duke's death, which not only 
freed him from his most persistent and dangerous enemy, but 

^ I follow accepted English usage in calling him Charles the Bold ; but the 
more correct translation of the French Temiraire, and a far more fitting sur- 
name, would of course be ' Rash.' 

207 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

also cleared the way for a further development of his territorial 
schemes. For the male line of Burgundy was now extinct, 
and Charles' only daughter, Marie, a girl of twenty, found 
herself, as ,a result of her father's violent and foolhardy policy, 
without an army, without resources, and practically without 
support. Kven during Charles' lifetime his heterogeneous 
domains had scarcely held together. Now the inevitable 
tendency toward disintegration was obvious. 

l/ouis at once proceeded to turn the situation to his own 
account. He announced his title to the fiefs which Charles 
had held of the Crown of France : to the duchy and county of 
Burgundy on the ground that they were male fiefs over which 
he was now called upon to exercise the right of feudal guardian- 
ship ; to Picardy under the Treaty of Arras ; to Artois as 
forfeit to him by reason of Charles* ' felony.' On various 
pretexts he even laid claim to Franche-Comte and Hainaut, 
though these were fiefs of the Empire. The duchy of Burgundy 
was induced without much difficulty to accept what was 
nominally the royal protection ; Franche-Comte yielded after 
a brief but lively resistance ; Picardy, always French in senti- 
ment, soon submitted ; but Artois held out obstinately against 
the royal arms. Arras in particular gave the King a great 
deal of trouble, and his consequent resentment was so strong 
that when at length it fell into his hands (June 1479) he ordered 
that its fortifications should be destroyed, its very name 
changed, and its inhabitants driven out in the mass, their 
places being taken by artisans and tradesmen chosen by lot 
from various other towns.^ After this his career of conquest 
in the county was checked only by Saint-Omer, which re- 
mained impregnable. But his cruelty and treachery had badly 
damaged his cause, and though Artois was reduced to subjec- 
tion its hostility was unbroken. The war of devastation which 
a little later he waged in Hainaut had much the same result. 

* Louis naturally failed in this attempt to transform the population of the 
city. Before he died he permitted its former inhabitants to return to their 
old homes. But the industries which had made Arras prosperous were 
seriously injured. 

208 



LOUIS XI 

Meanwhile lyOuis was looking with jealous eyes upon Flanders 
and was busy with intrigues by which he hoped to get posses- 
sion of that rich and thriving territory. The Flemings were 
not, however, easily entrapped. Then through his agents he 
endeavouredr to incite the feelings of the principal Flemish 
towns against Marie, his design being of course to profit by 
her embarrassment. In this emergency Marie was guilty 
of some double-dealing in her relations on the one hand with 
her counsellors and on the other with the King, and at the 
right moment I^ouis produced a secret letter from her in 
which her duplicity was revealed. By this singularly base 
action he aimed to increase the animosity of her Flemish 
subjects to such an extent that she would be forced to purchase 
his protection by the acceptance of any conditions he might 
see fit to impose. But here the wily King in fact over- 
reached himself. Marie's anger was aroused by the troubles 
and humiliation which he brought upon her, and the Flemings, 
who would on no account have him for master, were ready 
to pardon her indiscretion when in 1477 she gave her hand 
to young MaximiHan of Austria, the son of the German 
Kmperor. This union laid the foundations of the greatness 
of the house of Austria, and created for France a dangerous 
rivalry which was to last for more than two hundred years. 

I^ouis had had other plans for Marie's future, and this 
marriage sadly disturbed his calculations. War with Bur- 
gundy followed, and on August 7, 1479, ^ bloody battle was 
fought at Guinegatte (now Knguinegatte, in the Pas-de-Calais) 
without decisive issue. Three years later Marie died from 
injuries received in an accident while hawking, leaving two 
children, a son, PhiHppe, and a daughter, Marguerite. Maxi- 
milian soon embroiled himself with his subjects, and was glad 
to make peace with the King. On the 23rd of December of 
that same year a treaty was signed at Arras by which Marguerite 
was affianced to the Dauphin, to whom she was to bring in 
dowry Franche-Comte and the county of Artois. Nothing 
was said about Picardy or the duchy of Burgundy, which 
were thus tacitly allowed to remain in I^ouis' hands. 

o 209 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Consolidation of the Monarchy under Louis XI 

A good half of Charles the Bold's dominions were thus 
definitely merged in the kingdom of France. This, however, 
represents only a part of the substantial successes which I^ouis 
achieved on behalf of the monarchy. " While Charles was 
too much preoccupied with his own wild schemes to interfere, 
lyouis contrived, now by one method and now by another, to 
ruin the great houses of Alen9on (1473-74), Armagnac (1475), 
Saint-Pol (1475), and Nemours (1477) • Twice condemned to 
death for ' felony * and twice pardoned, John, the old Duke 
of Alen9on, was sent to prison for the rest of his life, and his 
domains of Alengon and Perche were confiscated by the Crown. 
John V, Count of Armagnac, a man of scandalous life and a 
persistent rebel against the throne, was slain. His cousin 
Jacques, Duke of Nemours, and lyouis de lyuxembourg, Count 
of Saint-Pol, were both executed for high treason. I^ouis 
thus disembarrassed himself of some of the chief disturbers 
of the peace and security of his realm. In other cases he 
sought not to destroy but to conciliate the great nobles whose 
power was still a menace to his own; as when he gave his 
daughters in marriage, the elder, Anne, to the Count of Beaujeu, 
the heir to the duchy of Bourbon (1473), the younger, Jeanne, 
to lyOuis, Duke of Orleans, the future Louis XII (1466). The 
death of his brother enabled him to reabsorb Guyenne and 
Berry. Anjou reverted to the Crown as a male fief. Maine 
and Provence came to him under testamentary bequest from 
Charles of Maine. As a result of Louis' intervention in the 
affairs of Spain, Roussillon and Cerdana were also added to 
France, but these were not permanent acquisitions, for they 
were restored by Charles VIII a few years later to Ferdinand 
and Isabella. Altogether the reign of Louis XI was signalized 
by an enormous increase in the royal territory and by a corre- 
sponding increase in royal power and prestige. France as 
he left it was almost the France that we know to-day, for at 
his death only one great feudal house — ^that of Brittany — still 
claimed complete independence. Nor was the gain territorial 
210 



LOUIS XI 

only. Out of a congeries of petty states l/ouis made an organic 
kingdom. 

l/ouis did not long survive the triumph of Arras. He had 
been struck by paralysis in 1480 and again in 1481, and at 
the time of the signing of the treaty he was seriously ill. His 
intellectual vigour remained, indeed, unabated, but sickness 
made him increasingly suspicious of all who came near him, 
even of his nearest relatives, and his cruelty and vindictiveness 
grew to such a pitch that he punished even the most trifling 
offences with the most barbaric severity. He had now shut 
himself up in the gloomy castle of Plessis-les-Tours, which was 
in fact more like a prison than a castle, for its windows were 
protected with iron bars (*' bons, grands, et epais," says 
Comines), the walls bristled with iron spikes, and day and 
night archers kept watch on the battlements and in the ditches. 
Here he lingered on, tortured incessantly by fear of death. 
Grossly superstitious and credulous, notwithstanding his 
astuteness and cynicism, he surrounded himself with relics 
and images borrowed from innumerable shrines ; with the 
Pope's special permission he ordered the sacred ampulla to be 
brought from Reims with the design of having his entire body 
anointed with its miraculous oil ; he made large donations to 
monasteries and churches to secure their prayers, and votive 
offerings to obtain the intercession of the saints ; he paid 
enormous sums to astrologers and charlatans for their prognos- 
tications and nostrums ; he sent all the way to Calabria for 
the famous hermit Francis of Paola, and implored him on his 
knees to use his favour with God for the prolongation of his 
days. His physician, the coarse and avaricious Jacques 
Coictier, became his tyrant, and during the last five months 
of his life extorted from him upward of 50,000 crowns, besides 
various privileges for himself and his family. His only other 
attendants were a few men of the lower bourgeoisie whom he 
felt he could trust because, wholly dependent as they were 
upon him, their interest lay in keeping him alive. '* I^es 
hauts seigneurs, dit-il, n'auront qu'a gagner a ma mort ; mais 
les pauvres sires seront desappointes de tout, peut-etre meme 

211 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

pendus." ^ As the sands thus slowly ran out he found amid 
all his fears and agitations a certain satisfaction in the thought 
of what he had accomplished for France : " Nous n'avons 
rien perdu de la couronne, mais icelle augmentee et accrue." 
His conscience never seems to have been troubled about the 
tortuous and often perfidious methods, the false dealing, the 
cold-blooded cruelty, by which his objects had been attained. 
On August 24, 1483, he suffered a third stroke of paralysis, 
and though he slowly recovered his faculties he knew that the 
end was at hand. ''II en est faict de vous," his physician 
curtly told him. Upon this his attitude toward death under- 
went a curious change. He lost all fear of it. " J'espere 
que Dieu m' aider a," he said simply. His mind was still 
wonderfully clear, and he. passed his few remaining days in 
religious exercises and in the discussion of pubHc affairs with 
his son-in-law, the Count of Beaujeu, for whom he had sent. He 
died on August 30, his last words being, '' I^ord, in Thee have I 
trusted, let me never be confounded." He was five months past 
his sixtieth birthday, and had reigned for twenty-three years. 

The Character and Policy of Louis XI 

It has been said of lyouis XI that he was one of the most 
unkingly men who ever sat on a throne. Unostentatious in 
public, parsimonious in private life, he made no attempt to 
support the dignity of his station. For the reality of power 
he had the keenest sense ; for its outward forms and sym- 
bols he cared nothing. His appearance was insignificant, his 
manners plain, his dress mean and even slovenly. Partly by 
policy but partly by natural preference, he posed as the roturier 
king, adopting the style and tone of the middle classes in 
deliberate contrast with those of the aristocracy. Partly by 
policy but partly by natural preference, too, he indulged in 
familiar intercourse with the bourgeoisie, cultivated the friend- 
ship of petites gens, and chose for his advisers such men as 
Tristan THermite (whom he called his compere), Olivier le Daim 
(originally his barber), Jean de Doyat, and Jean Balue, who 

* Comines, Memoires, t. ii, p. 481. 
212 



LOUIS XI 

were of low birth and little breeding. To these he gave his 
confidence so far as he gave it to any one at all ; but he was 
so sly and secretive that there is much point in Jacques 
de Breze's remark that his horse alone carried his counsels. 
He had, indeed, a cynical unbelief in human nature, and laid 
it down as his favourite maxim that " He who does not know 
how to dissimulate does not know how to rule." Keen of 
intelligence, fertile in resource, alert, restless, slippery, he 
was endowed with a real genius for politics. He loved to pit 
his cunning against the brute force of his opponents ; he had 
a rare faculty for turning their weaknesses to his own advantage 
and for extricating himself from a difficult situation ; and he 
spun such a web of intrigue about him that he came to be 
known as the " universal spider" (universelle aragne). In 
carr^dng out his plans he was, as we have seen, neither guided 
nor checked by the commonest considerations of morality. 
The elementary distinctions of right and wrong did not exist 
for him when he had a particular purpose in view. The 
success which he achieved by it was for him a complete justifi- 
cation of the basest action, and he was absolutely callous to 
the suffering which he caused in carrying out a scheme or in 
satisfying his thirst for vengeance. Religious he certainly 
was in a way ; but his was the kind of religion which merely 
drugs the conscience and has no relation with conduct and no 
hold upon life. It is, indeed, one of the strangest facts about 
this strange nature that the grossest superstitions should have 
exercised a tyrannous power over so strong and positive a mind. 

Be our judgments of the man and his methods what they 
may, however, we have still to recognize the importance of 
his place in the history of France. He has justly been called 
the real founder of the French monarchy. His one great 
object from the beginning of his reign to its close was the 
consolidation of the nation and the firm establishment of the 
authority of the Crown. That object he achieved. With him 
the period of medieval feudalism in France comes to an end. 

Yet we must be on our guard lest we read back into his 
policy a spirit which was entirely foreign to it. A little too 

213 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

much has sometimes been made of I^ouis' bourgeois procHvi- 
ties. These were not in the least indicative of democratic 
sympathies. If he made it his business to break the back of 
feudalism, and as an aid to this encouraged the burgher classes, 
he had not the slightest intention of transferring to the latter 
the powers of which the former had been deprived. He 
greatly favoured, it is true, the new aristocracy of industry 
and wealth which was now emerging into prominence under 
the changing conditions of the towns ; he loaded its repre- 
sentatives with privileges ; he granted them titles of nobility 
with a lavish hand. But he was at the same time careful to 
destroy the popular and democratic character of the communes, 
to reduce their administrative liberties, and to gather them 
securely under the rule of the Crown. Thus, while he made a 
great show of friendship toward the towns, he racked them 
with heavy taxation, and did not scruple to override their will 
wh,enever he saw fit. At bottom he was no more the friend of 
the Third Estate than he was of the nobility. Though his 
ambition was to subordinate particular interests to general, 
his government was entirely personal, his rule arbitrary. 
He held, as Comines says, that the power granted to him 
by heaven should be exercised for the public good ; but he 
himself was the only judge of what constituted the public good, 
and of the means by which it might best be compassed. He was 
in fact a despot, and if the history of French feudalism ends 
with him, with him also begins the history of French autocracy. 
It is from 'this standpoint that all his policy must be studied 
if we would understand it aright. Thus he created Parlia- 
ments at Bordeaux and Dijon as agencies of the royal authority 
in provinces now added to the Crown ; but he deprived the 
Parliament of Paris of the political powers which it was be- 
ginning to exercise and reduced its functions to those of a 
judicial tribunal. He eliminated from his Council all men 
who carried real weight, and surrounded himself with advisers 
devoted to his interests and subservient to his will. At times, 
for political purposes, he substituted extraordinary commissions 
for the regular legal machinery. He convoked the States- 
214 



LOUIS XI 

General once only, and that was in 1468, in the circumstances 
already described. 

lyOtiis' work for the welfare of his country is not, however, 
summed up in what he did for it politically. He encouraged 
commerce, industry, and mining, initiated a system of posts, 
and endeavoured to foster national trade by prohibiting the 
importation of merchandise into France except in French 
ships. He was also a patron of learning and letters. He 
received with favour a number of Greek scholars who had 
fled from Constantinople on the capture of that city by the 
Turks. He founded three universities. He extended the scope 
of the University of Paris, and created a separate school of 
-medicine in connexion with it. He reorganized the library 
established by Charles V. He protected the first printers 
when they set up their presses in the capital. He took an 
active interest in literature, and it was under his supervision 
that the collection of gross, but often amusing, stories was made 
which we know as the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles. 

Yet, notwithstanding the substantial benefits which in many 
ways lyouis undoubtedly conferred upon the French people, 
he was throughout, and particularly toward the end of his 
life, extremely unpopular among them. Himself genuinely 
solicitous, according to his lights, for the national welfare, he 
was one of the best hated of kings. The enormous expense 
of his government was undoubtedly a chief cause of this. 
Personally stingy, he spent money without pausing to count 
when political occasion demanded ; and political occasion often 
did demand, for his great instrument was always money 
instead of the sword. The taille perpetuelle was almost quad- 
rupled during his reign, for it went up to 4,600,000 livres in 
1481, and though after the Treaty of Arras it sank again a 
little, it was only to 3,900,000 livres. This taxation, *' tres 
excessive et cruelle," as a chronicler puts it, was a grievous 
burden upon the masses of the King's subjects, and served to 
make them indifferent to what he had accomplished in their 
behalf. To the majority of them, indeed, his death came, not 
as a sorrow, but as a relief. 

215 



CHAPTER VII 

CHARLES VIII ■ 

1483-1498 

LOUIS XII 

1498-1515 

LOUIS XI left two daughters and a son. His elder daughter, 
Anne, now twenty-one, was, it will be remembered, the 
wife of Pierre de Beaujeu, brother of the Duke of 
Bourbon ; his younger, Jeanne, had married the Duke of 
Orleans, her cousin, and the first prince of the blood. Born 
in 1470, his son, Charles, had only just turned thirteen at the 
time of his father's death. Technically he was indeed of age 
to reign in his own right, for the law had fixed the royal 
majority at thirteen. But his total inability to assume the 
responsibilities of government was patent to all, for he was 
poor in health and weak in character, and his education had 
been so shamefully neglected that at the time he could neither 
write nor read. Realizing the boy's incapacity, lyouis on his 
death-bed had expressed the wish that Anne of Beaujeu should 
act as his guardian. In her he had great confidence ; " she 
is," he once said, " the least foolish of all women — ^for wise 
there is none." Nor was she unworthy of his regard. She 
was plentifully endowed with energy, decision, and courage, 
and together with his love of power and his unscrupulousness 
she had a measure also of her father's intellectual qualities. 

The Regency of Anne of Beaujeu 

The commonly accepted idea that Anne undertook her task 
single-handed appears, indeed, to be unsound. On the con- 
trary, she acted throughout on the advice and with the support 
216 



CHARLES VIII 

'of her husband, a man of forty-four, and his part in her policy 
seems to have been so important that to him should properly 
be given much of the credit for the regime which is popularly 
associated with her name.^ But it was she who was always 
to the front, as the current phrase, " the government of 
Madame,'* testifies. 

The situation in France was thus very similar to that which 
had arisen on the accession of lyouis IX, when, it will be recalled, 
a woman had become the effective ruler of the country in the 
name of a boy-king. Out of a similar situation similar results 
seemed likely to ensue. The weakening of the royal authority 
had offered to the rebellious nobility of the thirteenth century 
a good chance to regain the power which they had lost under 
Philippe- Auguste . The restless nobility of the fifteenth century, 
crushed by lyouis XI, now believed that his death had cleared 
the way for one more effort for the recovery of their former 
prerogatives and prestige. Hence the aristocratic reaction 
which disturbed the early years of the new reign, and the 
leaders of which were the pleasure-loving young Duke of 
Orleans, himself indifferent to politics, but egged on by others, 
the Counts of Angouleme and Dunois, the Duke of Lorraine, 
and the old Duke of Bourbon. 

On one point Anne yielded readity to the cabal. The late 
King's favourites were dismissed and punished : Olivier le 
Daim was hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon ; Jean de Doyat 
had his tongue pierced and his ears cut off ; Coictier was forced 
to disgorge his 50,000 crowns. She even consented to the 
disbanding of the 6000 Swiss soldiers whom Louis had had in 
his service. But to the further demands of the princes for 
the restitution of lands and rights she refused to give ear. 
On the question of the regency and of the guardianship of the 
King she also remained firm, though an attempt was made 
to transfer her power to the Duke of Bourbon. In the end 
it was proposed that the States-General should be convened 

1 Petit-Dutaillis, in lyavisse, Histoire de Franca, t. iv, 2e Partie, p. 422. 
This view appears to be sound, though it is directly at variance with Brantome's 
statement that Beaujeu's wife " ne le consultait guere." 

217 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to settle the difficulty. On this point agreement was easy, 
because each party confidently expected that the sentiment 
of the nation would be in its favour. 

The States-General of 1484 

The States-General which met at Tours on January 7, 1484, 
and sat till March 14 consisted of 246 members. There were 
as yet no fixed regulations for elections, which were conducted 
in all sorts of different ways, and in some parts of the country 
were not held at all. In the strict acceptation of the term, 
therefore, this could not be called a properly constituted, 
representative assembly. Yet it was the first really national 
assembly in the sense that it was the first to which deputies 
were sent by provinces lying outside the royal domains. Here 
was an unmistakable sign of the unification of the kingdom 
achieved by lyouis XI. For purposes of voting division was 
made, not by orders, but by territorial sections, of which 
there were six — France, Burgundy, Normandy, Guyenne, 
I^anguedoc, and Provence. That Brittany was still unrepre- 
sented is a point to be noted. The King opened the session 
in person. 

On the fundamental question of government the States were 
at first divided. Conservative members held that it was a 
question which in fact lay beyond their competence ; their 
contention being that the royal power inhered in the royal 
family, and that if the king himself was unable to exercise it, 
it passed automatically into the hands of the princes of the 
blood. But there were others who repudiated this view and 
took a bold stand on the rights of the nation. Prominent 
among these was Philippe Pot, Seigneur de la Roche, the deputy 
of the nobility of Burgundy. " From the beginning," this 
orator declared, '* the sovereign people have created kings by 
their suffrage. Princes exist, not to enrich themselves at the 
expense of the people, but, forgetting their own interests, to 
enrich and advance the people's welfare. It is only flatterers 
who attribute to a prince that sovereignty which really exists 
only in the people. The public interest is the interest of the 
218 



CHARLES VIII 

people ; they confide it to the king. Those who have gained 
possession of it in any other manner can be regarded only as 
tyrants and usurpers. It is evident that our King cannot 
himself govern the commonwealth. Government should not 
therefore devolve upon the princes. It belongs to all. It is 
to the people who have granted it that the commonwealth 
should return ; and by the people I mean not simply the 
subjects of this kingdom, but men of all classes, even the 
princes." ^ These words seem curiously prophetic of the 
far-off Revolutionary age. It has, indeed, been pointed out 
that they are less remarkable in fact than in appearance, since 
Pot's theories about the supremacy of the people and the 
elective nature of the monarchy were simply commonplaces 
of the schools at the time.^ Yet even so his oration remains 
noteworthy in one respect : it boldly carried the abstractions 
of academic discussion over into the sphere of practical politics. 
The debate was heated, but little was accomplished by it. In 
the upshot the formation of a Council of State was left to the 
King, though the assembly recommended that twelve of the 
councillors should be chosen from its own body, and that 
in the absence of the King himself the presidency should 
devolve first on the Duke of Orleans, then on the Duke of 
Bourbon, and after him on the Sire de Beaujeu. The edu- 
cation and guardianship of the King were entrusted to his 
sister Anne. 

The assembly then turned to the discussion of the reforms 
which were to be referred to the Council. The nobility claimed 
the restitution of various seigniorial rights. The clergy de- 
manded the revival of the Pragmatic Sanction. The cahier 
of the Third Estate set forth the miseries of the people, '^ jadis 
nomme franc, et ors de pire condition que le serf," and urged 
that measures should be taken to stop the brigandage of the 
soldiers, that the military forces of the country should be 
reduced, that the pensions granted to the great lords should be 

1 Jehan Masselin, Journal des Etats-Generaux de France tenus a Tours en 
1484, ed. Bernier, p. 146. 

2 Petit-Dutaillis, in op. cit., t. iv, 2e Partie, p. 425. 

219 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

abolished, that taxes upon goods passing from one province 
to another should be suppressed, and that sundrj^ other specified 
abuses should be corrected. A requisition was also made 
that the States-General should be convened every other year, 
and that no fresh taxation should be imposed without its 
sanction. Unfortunately the division of the assembly by 
provinces now proved to be a great mistake, for local jealousies 
and the rivalries of the different parts of the country continually 
cut across all attempts at reform. On the financial question, 
however, some concerted representations were made. But 
the accounts which the deputies obtained with difficulty from 
the Council were so obviously falsified that they were quite 
useless for discussion. Finally a grant was made to the 
King of 1,200,000 livres a year for the next two years. Then 
sectional hatreds broke out anew over the problem of the 
equitable distribution of the taxes by which this sum was 
to be raised. When, after unseemly wrangles, the assembly 
at lerigth dissolved, to the immense relief of the princes, little 
had been actually done by it for the better government of 
the realm. ^ 

The ' Foolish War ' of 1486-88 

While nominally the predominant power in the Council 
was in the hands of the Orleanist rather than of the Beaujeu 
party, the fact that Anne of Beaujeu was officially the guardian 
of the King, was thus always with him, could bring her influence 
to bear constantly upon him, and was able even to make him 
the mouthpiece of her own will, gave her an enormous advan- 
tage which, as her father's daughter, she was not slow to 
turn to account. Before long the rival princes began to realize 
that their interests were seriously jeopardized by her ascen- 
dancy. The Duke of Orleans accordingly made common cause 
with the Duke of Bourbon, and with the Counts of Angouleme 
and Dunois, formed alliances with FrauQois of Brittany and 
Maximilian of Austria, and even sought the support of 
Richard III of England. But Anne checkmated him at all 
points. By backing the designs of Henry Tudor against 
220 



CHARLES VIII 

Richard, she deprived him at the outset of all hope of English 
help ; by intriguing with the domestic enemies of Francois and 
Maximilian she crippled the resources of both of his allies. 
Then, having weakened him by her plottings, she sent her 
armies into" the field. Maximilian was defeated in Artois 
(1487) ; the young King had little difficulty in subduing the 
south ; in Jtily 1488 I^a Tremouille routed a Breton force 
at Saint -Aubin-du- Cormier, taking the Duke of Orleans 
prisoner ; and the ' Guerre folle,' as it was called, came to an 
end. By the Treaty of Sable Francois of Brittany engaged 
himself thereafter to give no asylum to the King's enemies, 
and not to marry either of his daughters without the King's 
consent. A few weeks later he died, leaving the duchy to 
the elder of these, Anne, then only twelve. Child as she 
was, however, the little Duchess had a will of her own. She 
resolved both to preserve the independence of Brittany and 
to arrange her own destiny as she saw fit. I^ooking back we 
must admire her courage. But we cannot be astonished that 
events proved too strong for her. 

Her marriage now became the most urgent question in 
French — we might almost go so far as to say in European — 
politics, for on it hinged the future relations of France and 
Brittany. This the King's enemies perceived as clearly as 
did Anne of Beaujeu, now, since the death of the old Duke, 
Duchess of Bourbon. One of the most active of these, Maxi- 
milian of Austria, for whom the Treaty of Arras had been 
only so much waste-paper, and who was resolved if possible 
to win back the whole of Charles the Bold's heritage, saw 
in a union with Brittany the first step toward his success. 
He therefore became a suitor for the Duchess's hand. The 
rivalries and contentions of her counsellors and the unsettled 
state of her dominion made her position both difficult and 
perilous, and in Maximilian's proposal lay, it would seem, her 
only chance of safety. It was a proposal, too, which appealed 
to her ambitions, for Maximilian was now King of the Romans 
and would in due time become Emperor. She therefore con- 
sented, and actually went through the ceremony of marriage 

221 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

by proxy, Maximilian himself being at the moment busy 
with a war in Hungary. The Beaujeus could not, of course, 
be blind to the menace of such a union. They therefore 
determined to act before it was too late. Brittany was invaded 
by a royal army under I^a Tremouille ; a large portion of the 
duchy was occupied ; and in August 149 1 Anne found herself 
besieged in Rennes. Two months later the King himself 
arrived upon the scene ; Anne was notified that, since it was 
contracted in defiance of the Treaty of Sable, her marriage 
with Maximilian was null and void ; and negotiations ensued 
which ended in her betrothal to Charles. In December 1491 
the Duchess of Brittany thus became the Queen of France. 
The fact that this marriage in turn was a contravention of 
the Treaty of Arras could not of course be overlooked. But 
a fresh treaty, signed at Senlis in May 1493, got over the 
difficulty. Ivittle Marguerite of Burgundy, who had been 
brought to France in order to be educated for her marriage 
with the King, was sent home, and the counties of Artois and 
Burgundy, which she was to have brought as her dowry, were 
relinquished. This meant the loss of a portion of the territory 
which I^ouis XI's diplomacy had secured. But such loss was 
trivial in comparison with the immense gain which accrued 
in the union of Brittany with the French Crown. The last 
of the great fiefs— the last real stronghold of feudalism — ^was 
destroyed, and the royal authority was assured over the entire 
kingdom. 

Such danger? as meanwhile had threatened France from 
other quarters were happily averted. The new King of 
England, Henry VII, and Ferdinand the Catholic of Aragon 
had both thought to make capital out of the disturbed condi- 
tion of France. But Henry was bought off with a promise of 
745,000 crowns, while Ferdinand's energies were absorbed by 
his troubles with the Moors. The difficulties which he had 
to encounter in Flanders and Hungary similarly prevented 
Maximilian from giving practical effect to his anger at the 
Breton settlement. 



222 



CHARLES VIII 

The Reign of Charles VIII 

This settlement was the closing act of the regency of the 
Beaujeus. Already Charles had been freeing himself, by little 
and little, from their influence, and now he began to rule 
entirely on his own account. 

His policy toward the nobility was one of conciliation^ To 
those who had recently been prominent in the reaction against 
the throne he behaved with marked generosity. He released 
the imprisoned Duke of Orleans and pardoned the Count of 
Dunois. He also restored the confiscated estates of the family 
of Nemours. In character the very opposite of his father, he 
moreover gained the sympathy of the aristocracy as a whole — 
whose feudal tastes remained unchanged though their feudal 
power had gone — by his chivalrous spirit, his carelessness, 
and his love of pleasure and display. The strongly romantic 
bias of his nature had been intensified by much reading of 
books of chivalry, which had in fact turned his brains a little, 
as a century later they were to turn the brains of the famous 
knight of I^a Mancha. Puny in body and weak in mind as 
he was, he had none the less come to believe that the role he 
was called upon to fill was that of Charlemagne — the Charle- 
magne of romance — ^whom he had taken as his model. His 
imagination teemed with extravagant fancies. One of these 
took definite shape in the field of foreign politics. He nourished 
the dream of making France instead of Germany the centre 
of world-empire. This was the origin of his invasion of Italy — 
a task lightly undertaken in a mood of uncalculating temerity 
and absurd self-confidence, but destined to have remarkable 
and far-reaching results alike for France and for Europe. 

Invasion of Italy 

As a beginning he put forth a claim to the kingdom of 
Naples — a claim which he traced back to Charles I of Anjou 
(brother of I^ouis IX), who had received both Naples and Sicily 
as a fief from the Pope.^ The appeal for aid made to him by 

^ Sicily had passed to the King of Aragon in 1282, after the native rising 
against the French and the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. See ante, p. 147 . 

223 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

several petty Italian rulers gave him a further excuse for 
action. The conquest of Naples was, however, only the first 
step. His ultimate aim was to retake Jerusalem and to estab- 
lish again the Empire of the Bast. Such a grandiose scheme 
was well calculated to fascinate the nobility, whose pent up 
energies craved for outlet. Their enthusiasm made him indif- 
ferent to the warnings of his wiser counsellors — of Comines, 
for example, and Anne of Bourbon. The proposed expedition 
would give ample opportunity for adventure ; glory was to 
be gained in it ; and the prize was great. 

Charles accordingly gathered an army of 50,000 men and 
crossed the Alps ; and it is worth while to note in passing that 
despite the activity of the nobles this army was mainly com- 
posed of mercenaries, instead of feudal retainers. This shows 
that the military organization of feudalism was now rapidly 
becoming a thing of the past. Thus began the Italian wars 
in which France was to be engaged for more than sixty years, 
and, which were to interfere — as the Hundred Years' War 
had interfered — ^with the normal internal progress of the 
kingdom. 

Charles had made his plans hurriedly, and they were so 
incomplete that at the very beginning want of money com- 
pelled him to borrow a large sum at a ruinous rate of interest. 
Fortune, however, seemed to smile upon him. The people 
of Italy were seized with panic at his approach. His march 
through the country was a mere * promenade.' Florence, just 
then stirred to feverish excitement by the preaching of Savo- 
narola, opened its gates to him ; Rome did the same ; without 
having to strike a blow he entered Naples in triumph (February 
1495) ; and there, amid splendid festivities, he had himself 
solemnly crowned King of Naples, Emperor of the East, and 
King of Jerusalem. His brilliant success was, however, short- 
lived. While he was amusing himself and the Neapolitans 
with tournaments and magnificent processions news came 
that a formidable alliance, composed of I^udovico il Moro of 
Milan, Pope Alexander VI, Maximilian (now Emperor), Ferdi- 
nand of Aragon, and the republic of Venice, had been formed 
224 



LOUIS XII 

against him. At first he refused to realize the imminent 
danger of his position ; but finally he was persuaded by Comines 
to lead the main body of his forces back to France while the 
route was still clear. lycaving armies of occupation at Naples, 
Pisa, and other places on the seaboard, he thereupon set out 
from Naples (May 20, 1495) with 10,000 men and all his 
artillery. In Northern Italy he found his way blocked by an 
army of the allies outnumbering his own by three to one. 
But he managed to push through, though at the sacrifice of a 
large portion of his men, and with the remnant made good 
his retreat into France. The forces he had left in Italy were 
soon driven out, and his chimerical dream of conquest came to 
an end. 

This disastrous collapse of all his high-flown hopes seems 
to have exercised a tempering influence upon his giddy mind, 
for according to Comines he now set himself to live according 
to the commandments of God and for the better government 
of his realm. lyittle time, however, was left him to prove 
the depth of his new desires. On April 7, 1498, while walking 
through a dark passage in his castle of Amboise, he struck his 
head so violently against the top of a doorway that he died 
from concussion within a few hours. He was only twenty- 
seven, 

Louis XII 

Charles left no children, and with him closed the direct line 
of the Valois. The crown now passed to the heir-presumptive, 
the Duke of Orleans, whose complete reconciliation with the 
King had been shown by the active part he had taken in the 
Neapolitan campaign. He ascended the throne as I^ouis XII. 

A good-natured man, though of no great intellectual parts, 
the new King at once made it clear that he purposed to follow 
his predecessor's policy in burying the hatchet. All his ancient 
enmities were forthwith forgotten by him. " It would not," 
he said, " be fitting for the King of France to avenge the 
quarrels of the Duke of Burgundy." 

One special danger faced him at the opening of his reign. 

P 225 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Charles' widow had now retired to her own duchy, and as 
she was still a young woman, and a very independent young 
woman, there was at least a possibility that, notwithstanding 
her engagement in her contract with Charles, she might marry 
some foreign prince, and that Brittany might thus again be 
lost to France. There seemed to be only one way of obviating 
this danger, and that was by marrying Anne himself. That he 
was already married to the late King's second sister, Jeanne, 
was a fact which was not allowed to count in his political 
schemes. There had never been any pretence of affection 
between him and his poor, pious, deformed wife, and she had 
borne him no children. He did not hesitate, therefore, to 
appeal to Rome for permission to annul the marriage. This was 
obtained without difficulty from the Pope, Alexander VI, whose 
conscience in such a matter was not exactly sensitive, and for a 
second time Anne of Brittany became Queen of France (1499). 

Louis' Italian Wars 

Unfortunately lyouis was perfectly willing to accept the 
heritage of Charles' unrealized Italian ambitions, and, not 
satisfied with reasserting the old shadowy title to the kingdom 
of Naples, he added on his own account a further claim, which 
he derived from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti,^ to the 
duchy of Milan, from which the Viscontis had recently (1450) 
been expelled by the Sforzas. By gifts and promises he 
secured the friendship of the Venetians and the Pope, and 
then, assured' that no outside obstacle would be thrown in 
his way, he despatched an army to Milan, which capitulated 
on October 6, 1499. This easy success, which gained him the 
support of several Italian potentates, led him to turn his 
attention at once to Naples. But here he made a grave 
mistake. In the hope of thereby securing himself against 
possible interference from Ferdinand the Catholic (whose 
dynastic interests in Sicily might appear to be threatened by 
this French invasion), he entered into a compact with that 
astute and unscrupulous politician by which he agreed to 

* Who had married I^ouis, Duke of Orleans, in 1389. 
226 



LOUIS XII 

share with him the kingdom of Naples as soon as it should 
be conquered. Frederick III of Naples had lately called in 
the Spaniards to aid him against the French ; but Ferdinand, 
without the_ slightest regard to his engagements, at once 
betrayed him to the enemy. Naples thus fell into l/ouis' 
hands, as it had previously fallen into Charles', without the 
firing of a single shot. But now came the iquestion of partition, 
and with it the beginning of fresh trouble. French and Spanish 
were soon engaged in hostilities (1502), and though lyouis 
called army after army across the Alps to retrieve repeated 
disasters, he had at length to abandon Naples to the enemy 
(1503). One figure stands out, rich with all the colours of 
romance, in the miserable story of this Franco-Spanish war. 
It is that of the Chevalier Bayard, the knight '' sans peur et 
sans reproche." Many are the wonderful deeds of courage 
recorded of him. Perhaps the most wonderful was that 
which he performed at the battle of Garigliano, when, single- 
handed, he held a bridge against the foe. 

Distressed in mind, sick in body, and now seriously threatened 
by Maximilian, who was preparing to assert his imperial rights 
over Italy, I^ouis was glad to obtain peace at any cost. This 
he did by signing three separate treaties at Blois (1504) with 
the Kmperor and Ferdinand the Catholic. By these he 
obtained the Kmperor' s recognition of his claim to Milan by 
undertaking to support him against the Venetians ; Ferdinand 
was confirmed in the Kingship of Naples ; and it was agreed 
that the grandson of Maximilian and Ferdinand, Charles of 
Austria,^ should marry lyouis' daughter Claude, who should 
carry with her as dowry not only the duchy of Milan, but also 
Burgundy, Brittany, and Blois. These treaties were in the 
last degree disadvantageous to France, for Milan was the only 
gain secured by them, while on the other hand they involved 
a fresh dismemberment of the kingdom and an enormous 
addition to the future power of Charles of Austria, who was 
already heir to the Netherlands, Austria, Castile, and Aragon, 

* Charles was the son of Philip, Archduke of Austria, the son of Maximilian 
and Marie of Burgundy, and of Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. 

227 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

By a fourth treaty, the following year, I^ouis re-ceded his 
Neapolitan rights to Ferdinand on condition that Ferdinand, 
now a widower, should marry his niece Germaine de Foix. 

Having made these great mistakes, lyouis resolved to consult 
the nation as to the best means of undoing them. The States- 
General which met at Tours in 1506 declared that the treaties 
were null since the territory of the kingdom was inalienable. 
They also urged the King to marry his daughter to his heir- 
presumptive, Frangois of Angouleme. Neither Maximilian nor 
Ferdinand was in a position at the moment to protest, and 
lyouis thus made good his escape from the consequences of his 
injudicious action. 

The conquest of Genoa, the next year, signalized the revival 
of his Italian policy. He then joined the Pope, Julius II, 
Ferdinand, and Maximilian in the I^eague of Cambrai against 
Venice (1508), and won a striking victory over the republic at 
Agnadello (1509). But as soon as he had gained his ends the 
Pope 'turned against France, and, finding himself on the verge 
of defeat, called upon the Catholic princes of Europe for help. 
A Holy lycague was then formed against I^ouis, the principal 
members of which were Julius, Maximilian, Ferdinand, the 
Venetian Republic, and Henry VIII of England. I^ouis was 
excommunicated ; and despite the splendid generalship and 
prowess of young Gaston de Foix, the French were driven out 
of Italy (15 12, 15 13). Nor was this the full tale of disaster. 
France was invaded. The Spanish seized Navarre. The 
English descended upon the northern coast, and at Guinegatte 
won the Battle of the Spurs — so called because the French, 
attacked by sudden panic, " made more use of their spurs than 
of their lances." lyouis was again forced to sue for peace. 
He propitiated I^eo X, Julius' successor in the pontifical chair. 
He recognized Maximilian as the Duke of Milan. Treaties of 
peace were signed at Dijon with the Swiss, at Orleans with 
Germany, at lyondon with England. The last-named was ratified 
by lyouis' marriage with Henry VIII's sister, Mary (1514).^ 

lyouis, who had for some time been in poor health, did not 

^ Anne of Brittany had died in the January of that year. 
228 



LOUIS XII 

long survive these events. He died on January i, 1515, in 
his fifty-third year. 

The Internal Administration of Louis XII 

Louis was guilty of extreme folly in foreign affairs. But 
he made ample amends at home, and notwithstanding the 
humiliation which he brought upon his country he was greatly 
beloved by all classes of his subjects. ' lyC Pere du peuple ' — 
such was the surname which the States-General conferred 
upon him ; " the most sacred name," he himself declared, 
** that can ever be given to a prince." He was, indeed, 
sincerely interested in the welfare of France, which during 
his reign, it was commonly said, was happier and more pros- 
perous than it had been for the past three hundred years. 
The expansion of agriculture and commerce was in particular 
very marked. His military activity was not allowed to impose 
any fresh burdens upon his people, for he made Italy pay the 
cost of its invasions ; while as his practice was to meet personal 
expenses out of the products of his own domains, he was even 
able to reduce general taxation by something like 200,000 
livres a year. His economy, indeed, called forth some adverse 
criticism ; but to this his reply was : ''I would rather see the 
courtiers laughing at my avarice than the people weeping over 
my prodigality." In various ways he laboured for the public 
benefit. He put a stop to the brigandage of the soldiers, of 
which the common people had long had cause to complain. 
He carried forward the useful legislative work initiated by 
Charles VIII in the editing and publication of the customary 
laws of the different provinces, thus helping to guard against 
abuse ; he sought to diminish the extortions often practised 
in the courts ; he substituted French for I^atin in criminal 
trials ; and he instituted other important changes in the 
administration of the law. Such reforms give a real glory to 
his reign. It must, however, be added that much of the credit 
of them belongs to his favourite minister and confidential 
friend, Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal and Archbishop of Rouen, 
whose name history associates closely with his own. 

229 



CHAPTER VIII 

FRANCOIS I 

1515-1547 

HENRI II 

1547-1559 

LOUIS XII left only daughters, and the Orleans branch 
of the Valois dynasty ended, as it had begun, with 
him. He was succeeded by his nephew and son-in-law, 
Fran9ois of Angouleme, the great-grandson of lyouis, Duke of 
Orleans, the brother of Charles VI. ^ 

Yoilng (he was not yet twenty-one), high-spirited and 
romantic, swayed rather by the impulse of the moment than 
by any thought of future consequences, and caring far less 
about questions of national policy than about the excitement 
of personal adventure, Fran9ois had scarcely ascended the 
throne before he resolved upon the renewal of the irrational 
war with Italy. His first enterprise was the reconquest of 
Milan. He lost no time in concluding a treaty with Charles 
of Austria, by which, it should be remarked, Charles agreed 
to do homage for Flanders, Artois, and Charolais, and, leaving 
his mother, lyouise of Savoy, as regent, crossed the Alps by 
an unguarded pass, and on September 13 and 14, 15 15, at 
M?irignano (now Melignano), twelve miles from Milan, com- 
pletely routed a large army composed of the Swiss mercenaries 
of the duchy. The victory was brilliant, but it was costly, 
for he lost some 20,000 men killed and wounded. The severity 
of the fighting may be gauged by the remark of the old Marechal 
de Trivulce : *' I have taken part in eighteen battles, but they 
were merely child's-play ; Marignano was a battle of giants," 

'* See ante, p. 2?3 , 
230 



FRANCOIS I 

It is an illustration of one side — the highly developed romantic 
side — of Fran9ois' character that at his own request he received 
knighthood on the field at the hands of the Chevalier Bayard. 
Fran9ois was now master of Milan, but he was not satisfied 
with compelling the Kmperor to acknowledge his claims. He 
turned his commanding position to account by making friends 
with the Swiss and with the Pope. With the Swiss, whose 
fighting capacity was just then one of the capital facts in the 
military situation in Europe, he formed an alliance by the 
terms of which he obtained the right to levy troops among 
them. This treaty was called * la Paix Perpetuelle,' and it 
did in fact endure as long as the French monarchy. With the 
Pope he signed a Concordat (December 15 16), which involved 
the complete abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 
and the destruction of the rights of the Gallican Church there- 
by secured. This agreement, which at first aroused intense 
indignation throughout the country, has great importance in 
history because it governed the relations of France and the 
Papacy till the time of the Revolution. It should be noted 
that one effect of it was to strengthen the royal authority, for 
the appointment of all ecclesiastical dignitaries was now left 
to the Crown, whose selections were subject only to the nominal 
approval of the Pope. 

FRAN901S' Struggle with Charles V : First Stage 

These early successes greatly flattered the King's abundant 
vanity and whetted his appetite for further glory and power, 
and thus when in January 15 19 Maximilian died he put himself 
forward as one of several candidates for the Imperial crown. 
Here, however, he suffered rebuff. The choice fell on Charles 
of Austria, also King of Spain, and henceforth known as 
Charles V, who was now beyond comparison the most power- 
ful potentate in Europe. Frangois was angry at being thus 
thwarted in his ambitions. He saw, too, that the progress, if 
not the very existence, of France was imperilled by the new 
conditions which Charles' election had created. Pique and 
patriotism were in accord ; he determined to enter into a trial 

231 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of strength with his formidable rival, and at once sought grounds 
for a quarrel with him. 

The history of Europe during the next quarter-century is 
largely the history of the struggle between Fran9ois and Charles, 
with the two other chief Powers, England and Rome, standing 
by, and from time to time, as their interests at the moment 
seemed to dictate, favouring now one side and now the other. 
Both the opponents at the beginning of the conflict were very 
young men, for Fran9ois was still only four-and-twenty, while 
Charles was hardly more than nineteen. Save, however, for 
their youth, their ambition, and their unscrupulousness, they 
had practically nothing in common ; indeed, the contrast 
between them was as striking as any to be found among the 
elaborately balanced character-studies of the Shakespearean 
drama. Though not lacking in a certain dignity and grace, 
Charles was poor in physique and of fragile health ; he was 
gloomy in temper and deeply religious ; tenacious of purpose, 
he pursued his ends with dogged perseverance ; his life was 
orderly and simple, his personal morals, considering the age 
in which he lived, singularly pure. Frangois, on the contrary, 
was strong and handsome ; he was buoyant and debonair ; 
he loved sports and excelled in all manly exercises ; he was 
passionately addicted to pomp and display ; he was impetuous, 
unstable, and licentious. Nor were their differences those of 
personal character only. Seen in retrospect, their rivalry 
resolves itself into one of opposed principles. Charles stood 
for the medieval conception of universal empire, and his 
attempt to restore this — an attempt in which, though he was 
checked by Fran9ois, he was really foiled by lyUther — ^was, as 
I have elsewhere said, the last dream of the Middle Ages in 
politics. Fran9ois, albeit unconsciously, represented the rising 
power of nationalities, and with it that new idea of balanced 
equilibrium among them which was henceforth to be a vital 
factor in the evolution of the European peoples. 

There were points enough in dispute to provide Fran9ois 
with his warrant for instant action. Charles laid claim to 
Burgundy on the score that it had been unjustly annexed 
232 




23- Francois I 



232 



FRANCOIS I 

by Ivouis XI, and to the duchy of Milan as a fief of the Empire. 
Fran9ois maintained his title to these dominions, demanded 
that Charles should do homage for Flanders and Artois, in 
accordance with his undertaking of some years before, and 
further objected because Spain had taken possession of Navarre. 
The issues involved in the quarrel were, as will be seen, widely 
scattered ; but unhappy Italy was still destined to be the chief 
theatre of war. 

Fran9ois' first step was an attempt to win over Henry VIII. 
The two young monarchs (for Henry too was still under thirty) 
met by arrangement near Guines, in the Pas-de-Calais, in a 
spot w^hich, by reason of the lavish magnificence in which 
each party sought to outdo the other, was known as the Field 
of the Cloth of Gold. The utmost ardour of friendship was 
exhibited on both sides ; Frangois even going so far, after 
the crazy fashion of the chivalry which he loved, as to visit 
the English King's tent in the early morning unattended, 
and to offer to act as his valet. But all the ridiculous waste 
of money, the vulgar ostentation, the repeated professions of 
brotherly affection, came to nothing. It is a commonplace 
of history that great results sometimes spring from the most 
trivial causes. There were tourneys and trials of skill at 
Guines to enliven the dullness of diplomatic discussion, in one 
of which the agile French King had the misfortune to over- 
throw his heavier antagonist ; and it is said that Henry's 
sensitive vanity was so outraged by this humiliation that his 
attitude toward Fran9ois instantly changed. Be this as it 
may, cordiality had certainly given place to irritation before 
the conference closed. Then on his homeward way Henry 
was met by Charles at Wael, near Gravelines, and though 
there was now no gorgeous ceremonial to tickle the fancy, a 
good deal of business was very quickly done. By the promise 
to Wolsey of a pension at once and of the papal tiara in 
the near future, the Emperor without difficulty obtained the 
support of the English King. 

The campaign which followed was very disastrous to Frangois. 
The Imperial troops drove the French out of Italy, invaded 

233 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Provence, and laid siege to Marseille ; Navarre had to be 
abandoned ; the armies of Charles and Henry even threatened 
France in the north. There was also treachery at home to 
contend with, for the Duke of Bourbon, the Constable of France, 
who had specially distinguished himself at Marignano, deserted 
to the enemy. It is to be hoped that that turbulent noble 
felt the full force of the rebuke administered to him at the 
battle of Rebecco, in 1524. Mortally wounded, Bayard kissed 
the cross of his sword-hilt, and had himself laid beneath a tree 
with his face to the enemy. '* I have never yet turned my 
back to a foe," said the dying man, " and I am not going to 
begin to do so now." There, as it happened, he was found by 
the Duke of Bourbon, in hot pursuit of the French. The 
Duke, leaning over, spoke -some words of pity to him. " I 
am not to be pitied," was the Chevalier's reply, "for I die as 
an^ honest man. It is rather you who should be pitied, who 
have taken up arms against your King, your country, and 
youf vows." 

Amid these reverses FrauQois kept up a gallant struggle. 
But the cup of disaster was not yet full. In 1524 he once 
more led in person a large army across the Alps against the 
forces of the Emperor, and laid siege to Pavia. This was in 
October. On the 24th of February following a great battle 
was fought outside the city, and Fran9ois was defeated and 
taken prisoner. After some time in Italy he was carried to 
Spain, and lodged in the castle of Madrid, where he spent his 
time in reading, turn and turn about, Paul's Epistles and his 
favourite romance, Amadis de Gaule. Confinement, anxiety, 
and want of exercise told seriously upon his health and spirits, 
and in the end he was glad to buy liberty by a general sub- 
mission to all the Emperor's demands. By the Treaty of 
Madrid (January 1526) he gave up all his Italian possessions, 
renounced the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois, ceded Bur- 
gundy as a fief, undertook to restore the Duke of Bourbon 
to all his former dignities, abandoned Navarre, and engaged to 
marry Charles' sister, the Dowager-Queen of Portugal, and to 
surrender his two sons as hostages, 



FRANCOIS I 

This inglorious treaty marks the close of the first stage in 
the struggle between the King and the Emperor. 

The Second Stage 

Secure once more in his own domains, Fran9ois soon made 
it clear that he did not intend to be bound by his engagements. 
The Treaty of Madrid, he declared, had been wrung from him 
by force, and he therefore refused to regard it as sacred. 
Conditions had now^ changed in his favour. Rome, England, 
Venice, Florence, and Genoa were all growing alarmed at 
Charles* steadily increasing power. They perceived that it 
was now to their interest to espouse the cause of France. A 
Holy lycague was thereupon formed against the Emperor by 
Pope Clement VII, who had already cleared the way by absolving 
Fran9ois of his oath at Madrid. England was the more willing 
to enter into this league because Wolsey, having been dis- 
appointed in his hopes of the tiara, was at the moment ill- 
disposed toward Charles. 

War in Italy began again in 1527, when a mixed army of 
Spanish and German mercenaries under the Duke of Bourbon 
(now Duke of Milan and Spanish commander in Northern 
Italy) laid siege to Rome. In the fierce struggle which raged 
before the fortifications were carried Bourbon himself was 
mortally wounded — struck down by a chance bullet which 
Benvenuto Cellini afterward asserted had been shot by him. 
But the city was captured, and the Imperial ruffians avenged 
their leader's death by a three days' riot of butchery, outrage, 
and pillage, while Clement remained shut up in the Castle of 
St Angelo. The news of the sack of Rome and of the 
Pope's imprisonment sent a thrill of horror throughout Catholic 
Europe. But though Charles disclaimed all responsibility and 
loudly expressed his regret for what had happened, he did 
nothing to save the Pope, in whom he saw merely the most 
active and dangerous of all his foes. Francois and Henry then 
determined to move in concert for the deliverance of Italy, 
each having his own selfish objects in view. But Francois' 
fresh attempt to conquer Naples failed, and again he was 

23s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

forced to come to terms for a cessation of hostilities. By the 
Peace of Cambrai (1529) — ' le Traite des Dames/ as it was 
called, from the part played by Margaret of Austria and l/ouise 
of Savoy in bringing it about — the Treaty of Madrid was 
confirmed with modifications. Francois lost Flanders and 
Artois and renounced all his Italian pretensions ; but he was 
allowed to regain possession of Burgundy. His two children 
were now restored to him, while his marriage with Kleanor of 
Portugal was solemnized the next year. 

The Closing Stage 

This treaty marks the close of the second stage of the struggle 
between FrauQois and Charles. In the seven years of peace 
which followed, while Charles was mainly occupied with the 
religious troubles in Germany and with the defence of Christen- 
dom against the Turks, Frangois busied himself in strengthening 
his position by entering into all sorts of alliances. Never, as 
has 'been said, has any ruler shown himself so eclectic in his 
friendships. To please Henry VIII he favoured that King's 
divorce from Catherine of Aragon. At the same time he 
negotiated the marriage of James V of Scotland with Marie 
of I/orraine. He gained the support of the Pope (Clement VII) 
by proposing a marriage between the Pope's cousin, Catherine 
de' Medici,^ and his son Henri, and by undertaking to stop 
the spread of heresy in his kingdom. But he none the less 
made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, then 
in league against the Catholic Charles. To the great indigna- 
tion of Christian Europe, he even entered into an agreement 
with the Turks. Such were his preparations for a renewal 
of his conflict with his rival. His thirst for adventure was 
still unslaked. His ambition for foreign conquest was as 
strong as ever. He had learned nothing from the disasters 
of his previous campaigns. He was now only waiting for an 
opportunity for further action. 

The execution at the instigation of the Emperor of the 

* Catherine was not Clement's niece, as is commonly said, but his second 
cousin once removed. ^ 

236 



FRANCOIS I 

secret agent of France at Milan, and the death shortly after- 
ward, without heirs, of Francesco Sforza, the Duke, gave him 
the pretext for which he was in search. Once again he revived 
his claim to the duchy (1536), and seized Savoy and Piedmont. 
Charles replied by invading Provence, but the Constable 
Montmorency turned the country before him into a desert, 
and, decimated by famine and dysentery, the Imperial army 
had to retreat. Then Pope Paul III intervened and the 
third stage of the long and aimless rivalry was brought to 
an end by a ten years' truce, signed at Nice, June 18, 1538, 
each party retaining the possessions then in his hands. 

It now, indeed, seemed as if the ancient enmity between 
Fran9ois and Charles had at length burned itself out. When 
the next year Charles was called to the I^ow Countries to 
stamp out rebellion at Ghent, Frangois not only permitted 
him to cross his kingdom, but even entertained him at Paris 
with all the lavish prodigality which he loved. But the recon- 
ciliation was of short duration. There was no sincerity on 
either side. Frangois was annoyed because he failed to come 
to any practical understanding with his politic guest about the 
duchy of Milan, for which he still hankered ; and the murder 
of two of his emissaries on their way to the Sultan of the 
Turks gave him an excuse for drawing the sword at the oppo- 
tune moment when Charles' ill-fated expedition against Algiers 
(1541) had just ended in a sensational failure. Three more 
years of war followed. Francois sent out five separate armies 
against the Emperor, and won a brilliant victory over the 
Spaniards at Cerisola, in Piedmont (April 14, 1544). But 
Charles, with Henry now once more his ally, planned a double 
invasion of France, and the Imperial forces, marching through 
Champagne, actually came within twenty-four leagues of the 
capital. Frangois was, indeed, saved from an overwhelming 
catastrophe only through the inability of his two enemies to 
work together. This fourth war was then closed by the Treaty 
of Crespy (1544), which in effect left matters pretty much as 
they were before hostilities began. 

Thus ended Fran9ois' twenty-five years of struggle with the 

237 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Emperor. On the face of it he had gained nothing. He had 
rather wasted his substance and his energies in the pursuit of a 
chimerical dream, and the final peace, which at length gave his 
country rest, was a peace without honour. Yet, severely as we 
must condemn his amazing folly, history has to recognize that 
there was another side to his visionary enterprise. Though he 
could not conquer Charles, he had, as I have said, checked him. 
The far-reaching importance of that fact it would perhaps 
be difficult to exaggerate. He kept his country intact against 
the most formidable coalition of foreign Powers by which it 
had ever been threatened, and he stood between Europe and the 
enormous imperial ambitions of the house of Austria. 

Last Years : Character- and Influence 

Francois' reign, which had opened so brilliantly, closed 
aniid ever deepening gloom. At fifty the once gay, witty, 
genial King was already an irritable, morose, and suspicious 
old 'man. Painful disease and premature decay were the 
penalties he had to pay for a profligate life. Even his hand- 
some person was disfigured by monstrous swellings and chronic 
abscesses ; his mind lost much of its vigour and clearness ; 
his ready speech grew halting. He died at the castle of 
Rambouillet on March 31, 1547 — "^^o months after our own 
Henry VIII. In his last hours he made a great profession of 
religious faith, kissing the cross which he held in his arms 
and whispering the name of Jesus. But, as a recent writer 
has well said,^ ''It is hard to know how much of this was 
sincere, how much a death-bed repentance. The monarchs 
of those days extended the divine right of kings beyond the 
grave and demanded a State entry into heaven. The cere- 
monies and pieties of dying sovereigns were part of their 
proper preparation for the celestial pageants, and Fran9ois, 
in this respect, was every inch a king." ^ 

Kingly we must certainly call him, if we think only of the 
externals of kingship. His were essentially the qualities which 
enabled him to play his part effectively as one of the out- 

* l^dith Sichel, Women and Men of the French Renaissance, p. 355. 

238 



FRANCOIS I 

standing figures on the stage of his time. He was a man of 
fine presence and imposing personaHty ; his manners were 
engaging, his conversation full of vivacity and charm. Restless 
of temper and alert of mind, he had an extraordinary range 
of interests "and a remarkable general knowledge of- many 
things. This versatility served to keep him in touch with 
nearly all the varied movements of the new age, and, himself 
a lover of beauty and a dabbler in learning, he was throughout 
a munificent patron of art and letters. It is thus that the 
Renaissance in France has come to be so intimately associated 
with his name. But he was wholly wanting in depth and 
sincerity, and, despite the superficial brilliancy of his mind, 
he had nearly all the faults of a thoroughly selfish aM unstable 
nature. His finer qualities were, indeed, hardly more than 
skin-deep. At bottom he was inordinately vain, frivolous, 
capricious, licentious, and untrustworthy. His romantic bias 
prompted him to resuscitate the manners of chivalry ; but 
it was only the pomp and splendour of chivalry, its gallantry, 
its adventurous spirit, that appealed to him ; with its strenuous 
moral purposes he had neither sympathy nor concern. His 
radical want of balance was shown even in those elements of 
his character which we may most admire, for his generosity 
ran into the wildest extravagances and his courage to the 
extreme of temerity. He gave a great part of his life to 
magnificent schemes of foreign conquest, but he had nothing 
of the real statesman's large vision or steady insight ; he acted 
on impulse, and his policy was guided by no definite or 
consistent aims. 

His attitude toward the religious problems of his time 
enables us to realize very clearly his inconstancy, his funda- 
mental want of earnestness, and, notwithstanding his auto- 
cratic temper, his susceptibility to outside influences. In early 
life, led by his sister Marguerite of Angouleme, he favoured 
the movement for the purification of the Church, and so long 
as the war with Charles continued he did all he could to stand 
well with the party of Reform. But this was a matter of selfish 
calculation only. He had no real interest in the questions at 

239 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

issue, and for toleration as toleration he cared nothing. The 
moment he saw that it would be to his advantage to placate 
the Pope he changed without hesitation from a friend into a 
foe of the Reformers, and by the advice of his eviL counsellors 
was easily persuaded to become their bitter and systematic 
oppressor. A resolute attempt to stamp out heresy by perse- 
cution thus became a feature of the closing years of his reign. 
In particular we have to recall the brutal attack upon the 
innocent Waldenses of Provence in 1545. This crusade of 
infamy, in which twenty-two villages were burned and 4000 
persons massacred, has left a dark stain on his memory, which 
not all the glory that redounds to him as the central figure 
in the French Renaissance will ever suffice to efface. 

Of his part in the Renaissance I shall have occasion to speak 
in the next chapter. One fact, not altogether unconnected 
with this more general subject, may, however, be mentioned 
here. It is with him that the French Court, in the strict sense 
of the term, may properly be said to begin. His predecessors 
had lived, very much after the fashion of the great feudal 
chiefs, surrounded by their counsellors and their men-at-arms ; 
women had been in the background ; and all those complex 
conditions which emerge from the free and constant inter- 
course of the sexes in a world of wealth and leisure were as 
yet lacking. The transformation of the king's entourage 
began, but it only began, with Anne of Brittany, as the Queen 
first of Charles VIII and then of lyouis XII. It was completed 
by Fran9ois I, and its completion was due in part to that 
King's own tastes and in part to the changing conditions of 
the age. Frangois gathered about him a multitude of cour- 
tiers ; noble ladies who had hitherto spent their lives in the 
gloomy solitudes of remote feudal castles now basked in the 
sunshine of the royal presence and competed with one another 
in beauty, wit, and grace. Wherever the King went, even 
though it might be on a mission of State, he was attended by 
an immense retinue of lords and dames ; sports, hunting parties, 
festivals, masquerades were things of daily occurrence ; the 
most lavish display was encouraged; manners became at 
240 



FRANCOIS I 

once more refined and more artificial ; gallantry and intrigue 
followed as a matter of course. With this rise of the Court 
we may note, too, the rise of the influence — generally perni- 
cious — of women as an almost permanent factor in political 
affairs. In addition to his mother, lyouise of Savoy, who 
exerted great power over him while he was still a very young 
man, two women, both famous for beauty and intelligence, 
were specially prominent during his reign. One of these was 
Frangoise de Foix, Countess of Chateaubriant, the other Anne 
de Pisseleu, Duchess of Btampes. But other women figured 
also, if in a smaller degree, in Frangois' life, for he was a light 
lover and had many mistresses. 

Regarding the political evolution of France under his rule 
a few words will suffice. The chief fact to be emphasized is 
the enormous development of the royal authority. The King 
was now an absolute monarch ; his will, as a Venetian ambas- 
sador of the time declared, was supreme in everything ; he 
stood, according to the express statement of the Parliament 
of Paris, above the law. The ancient nobility retained their 
titles and their revenues, but they no longer enjoyed — as indeed 
they no longer claimed — any sovereign rights, and their subor- 
dination to the King and dependence upon him were complete. 
The clergy, as we have seen, were also subjected to the Crown. 
The Third Kstate, though increasing rapidly in wealth, had 
lost its old communal liberties and had gained nothing other- 
wise in political power. Frangois never once convened the 
States-General, and thus never even made a show of consulting 
the nation, while by forbidding the Parliament of Paris to 
meddle with political affairs and by depriving it of its former 
right to withhold the registration of royal edicts — without 
which registration it had hitherto been held that no edict had 
the force of law — ^he destroyed the last safeguard against the 
despotism of the throne. The unification of the kingdom had 
been achieved, but at the price of autocracy. A large standing 
army, composed in the main of foreign mercenaries, helped 
to make the theory of absolutism a practical reality. 

That the financial administration of the country under 

Q 241 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Francois I was of a reckless character will be readily under- 
stood. The King needed enormous sums of money for his 
foreign wars, for the upkeep of his army and navy, and for 
the maintenance of his prodigal magnificence at Court. Taxes 
had therefore to be increased and levies made, offices were 
sold, and a royal lottery was established. But as even these 
measures were inadequate he also had to borrow, and his 
borrowings initiated the public debt of France. 

Henri II 

The twelve years' reign (1547-59) of Frangois' son and 
successor, Henri II, added little of importance to history. 
Henri followed his father's foreign policy, and after a prelimi- 
nary conflict with England, in which Boulogne was captured 
by the English and later restored to France, he embarked upon 
a^ fresh struggle with Charles V. While he ruthlessly perse- 
cuted the Reformers at home, he allied himself with the German 
Protestants against the Emperor, and fortune so far favoured 
him that he was able to make himself master of the Trois- 
Bveches — ^Metz, Toul, and Verdun — ^which had strategical 
value in the defence of the eastern frontier of the kingdom. 
Then came (1556) the abdication of Charles, who, broken in 
health and weary of the burden of empire, retired to the 
monastery of Yuste, in Estremadura, leaving the crown of 
Spain, together with the Netherlands and Italy, to his only 
son, Philip II, who two years earlier had contracted a political 
marriage with Queen Mary of England. Henri thereupon 
entered into an alliance with the Pope (Paul IV) for the 
deliverance of Italy from the Spaniards ; but the French 
invasion of Italy came to nothing through the inability of 
the commander, the Duke of Guise, to contend against the 
superior generalship of the famous Duke of Alva. The 
Spaniards at the same time invaded Picardy, under Duke 
Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, and at Saint-Quentin gained 
a decisive victory over the French under Montmorency. 
Meanwhile Henri had formed an alliance with Scotland against 
England, and was once more engaged in an English war. This 
242 




Ti- 



a 
w 

M 

CO 

w 
w 



to 
o 



M 



HENRI n 

ended in 1558 with the capture of Calais by the Duke of Cuise. 
Calais had been in the hands of the English for 210 years, and 
as it was still regarded by them as a key to France, its loss 
was considered as nothing less than a national disaster. Kvery 
one is familiar with the words of the dying Mary, that the 
name of Calais would be found imprinted upon her heart. 

By this time the callous, bigoted, and fanatical Spanish 
King was ready to come to terms with France. He was the 
bitter foe of Protestantism, and had resolved upon forcing the 
countries which had embraced it back into the fold of the 
Church under compulsion of the sword. In this gigantic scheme 
he needed the support of Catholic France. Hostilities were 
accordingly closed with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 
1559, by which France was allowed to retain the Trois-fiveches 
and Calais, while she relinquished Milan, Bresse, I^e Bugey, and 
Savoy. With this treaty ends the long story of France's futile 
effort to establish a footing in Italy. To cement the peace 
two marriages were arranged, that of Philip to a daughter and 
that of Kmmanuel Philibert to a sister of the French King. 
Brilliant festivities were held in Paris to celebrate this agree- 
ment ; but these came to a tragic end, for while taking part 
in a tournament Henri was struck in the eye by the broken lance 
of the Count of Montgomery (a Scotch nobleman and the captain 
of his guard), and died eleven days later at the age of forty. 

Henri resembled his father in his ambition, his prodigality, 
his licentiousness, and his devotion to manly exercises ; but he 
had few of his better qualities ; for whereas Frangois, with 
all his vices, had been attractive and intelligent, he, on the 
contrary, was heavy and dull. He quickly squandered the 
large sums which Frangois had gathered against a German 
war, and was henceforth driven to negotiate loans at ruinous 
rates of interest, thus adding greatly to the national debt. 
Offices, dignities, and favours he scattered among his courtiers 
with an equally lavish hand. His ignorance and moral weak- 
ness made him an easy prey to the stronger natures about 
him, and throughout his reign he was governed by favourites, 
whom he allowed to displace the tried ministers whose counsels 

243 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

his father had specially recommended him to follow. The 
regular administration of the country he confided almost 
entirely to the Duke of Montmorency, who had been banished 
from Fran9ois' Court in disgrace, and was now recalled, and 
Jacques de Saint- Andre, whom he made Marshal of France. 
But an even more powerful personal influence was exerted 
upon him by his mistress Diane of Poitiers, ^ and by the rising 
family of Guise. Though nineteen years his senior, Diane had 
gained his affections while he was still Dauphin, and after- 
ward exercised an almost absolute sway over his judgment 
and tastes. The Guises were hardly less potent in his counsels. 
Proud, ambitious, determined, this cadet branch of the house 
of lyorraine was now pushing its way to the front, and three 
of its members — Frangois' le Balafre, lyieutenant- General of 
the kingdom, who had defended Metz against Charles and 
had taken Calais ; his brother, Charles the Cardinal ; and 
his son Henri — played the chief part, as we shall see directly, 
in the Wars of Religion as the leaders of Catholicism against 
the Huguenots.^ 

^ The founder of the family was Claude of lyorraine, who won distinction 
in Italy, and was made Duke of Guise by Fran9ois I in 1527. His daughter 
married James V of Scotland, and was the mother of Mary Queen of Scots. 
Fran9ois le Balafr^ (so called from the severe wound on his face, which he 
received at the siege of Boulogne) and Charles the Cardinal were his sons. 
His grandson Henri, the third Duke, was also nicknamed ' le Balafre,' from a 
scar on his cheek. 



244 



X 

CHAPTER IX 

THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

I HAVE said that the Renaissance in France has come 
to be intimately connected with the name of Frangois I. 
So close, indeed, is the association that the beginning of 
the great intellectual and aesthetic revival is very commonly 
assigned to the year of his accession. This is of course in a 
sense a matter of convenience only. Yet it is not without 
justification on historical grounds, for the impulses behind the 
new movement, though they did not actually arise, first became 
paramount in the early part of his reign. From the personal 
point of view, moreover, his direct influence upon them has to 
be recognized. A man of sumptuous nature and many-sided 
interests, he had, with all his vices, abundant curiosity and a 
genuine love of beautiful things, and even if vanity and the 
mania for display had not a little to do with his munificent 
patronage of scholars and artists, his encouragement and 
example counted much in the spread of the new ideas and 
tastes. 

We have now, therefore, reached the point where we may 
fittingly interrupt our narrative to give a brief account of the 
Renaissance in France. One word of explanation is requisite 
before we proceed. The original movement of the Renaissance 
may be said to have lasted till about the close of the sixteenth 
century — that is, to the end of the Valois dynasty ; by which 
time, as Brunetiere has said, the surviving traditions of the 
Middle Ages had practically disappeared.^ As we are here 
to be concerned with the period as a whole, this chapter will 
necessarily carry us beyond the chronological limits reached in 
the actual progress of our story. 

1 Mi^nuel de I'Histoire de la Litterature franfaise, p. 47. 

245 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

We have already seen ^ that what we definitely call the 
Renaissance had been anticipated some two hundred years 
before, and at the very time when the great medieval order 
was at its height. It was then said, however, that the season 
of brilliant promise which came with the thirteenth century 
was destined to be followed by a long period of decline, and 
the causes of that decline are now sufficiently clear. The 
terrible strain of the Hundred Years' War and the universal 
anarchy which resulted were obviously fatal to intellectual 
progress, and it was not until the monarchy had been consoli- 
dated by lyouis XI and the material prosperity of the country 
restored under lyouis XII that conditions favourable to such 
progress were once more established in France. But meanwhile 
south of the Alps the great- revival of letters and art had gone 
on unchecked, and what in France was an age of dissolution 
aild reaction was in Italy an age of triumphant humanism. The 
development of civilization in France during the later fifteenth 
century itself pre]3ared the soil ; but it was from Italy that 
the first seeds of the Renaissance now came. 

For some sixty years before Francois I ascended the throne 
the influence of the new Italian culture had been making itself 
increasingly felt. This is shown in particular in the Greek 
revival, one of the most important phases of the history of 
humanism. As far back as 1458 one of those wandering 
Italian scholars who early began to carry the torch of learning 
into Northern Europe — Gregorio Tifernas by name — arrived 
in Paris, and for a short time taught Greek at the university. 
He was followed a little later by a native Greek, Georgius 
Hermonymus of Sparta, who, though an utterly incompetent 
teacher, did something to keep the flickering flame of Hellenism 
alive. I^ittle or no progress, however, was made for many 
years in this or in any connected line of study, for the university 
authorities were for the most part suspicious of the new learning, 
in which they scented heresy, and certainly did not encourage 
it, even when they did not throw positive obstacles in its 
way, while in the wider field of literature and art scarcely 

^ See ante, Book II, chap. viii. 
246 



'^^''^f 




/ \ , 




25. The Pai,ais Ducai,, Nancy 



J 

246 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

any sign of the approaching change had yet appeared. Then 
came what from the standpoint, not of politics, as we have 
seen, but of culture, must be regarded as an epoch-making 
event — Charles VIII's ' holiday excursion ' into Italy — ^his 
** voyage de Naples '' as Comines called it. This led, in 
Michelet's characteristically rhetorical phrase, to the French 
/* discovery of Italy." The weeks or months, as the case 
might be, which Charles' army spent— in a military sense, 
wasted — ^in the great centres of humanism and art — ^Naples, 
Rome, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Piacenza — ^produced a profound 
effect on the minds of some at least of his followers, whose 
enthusiasm for Italian culture was aroused by this direct 
contact with it, and even the King himself, ignorant and 
narrow-minded as he was, had his ambition stirred, and freely 
invited both scholars and artists to his capital and Court. The 
intellectual intercourse between the two countries thus opened 
up proved immensely fruitful to France for nearly a century, 
and it is from its commencement that we may date the great 
transformation which culminated under Fran9ois I. 

The Revival of Learning 

In the new age of classical scholarship in France now initiated 

— ^the age which saw the study of lyatin antiquity liberated 

from the trammels of medieval theology and scholasticism 

and revitalized,! and that of Greek antiquity firmly established 

—the lead was still taken by foreign pioneers : notably by 

the Greek Janus Lascaris, who had been in the service of 

Ivorenzo the Magnificent, and was one of those who accepted 

Charles VIII's invitation to Paris ; |the young|Italian Girolamo 

Aleandro (Hieronymus Aleander), who later became prominent 

^ Ivatin authors had been studied throughout the Middle Ages in the schools 
of France as in those of other countries, but in a mystical and allegorizing 
spirit which made all real apprehension of their meaning impossible. As 
Brunetiere has well said, " lya difference est en effet profonde entre la dis- 
position d' esprit qui consiste a chercher, dans les Tusculanes ou dans le 
sixidme chant de Vl&niide, les signes avant-coureurs du christianisme d^ja 
prochain, et celle qui consiste a n'y vouloir uniquement saisir, pour en jouir, 
que les t^moignages du genie m^lancolique de Virgile ou de 1' eloquence de 
Cic^ron" {op. cit., p. 42). 

247 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

as the bitter opponent of I^uther at Worms and a persecutor 
of the Protestants in the I^ow Countries ; and the great cosmo- 
poHtan missionary of humanism, Erasmus, who exercised an 
enormous influence in France, as he did in England, Switzer- 
land, and Italy itself. But before long native French scholars 
came to the fore ; among them the famous Guillaume Bude, 
or Budaeus, theologian, legist, historian, mathematician, and 
above all Hellenist ; Jacques I^efevre d'Btaples, whose name 
we shall meet again among those of the early religious reformers ; 
Btienne Dolet, who in 1532 returned from a six years' sojourn 
in Italy filled with the new spirit, and was burned at the stake 
in 1546 on charges of heresy ; the younger Scaliger, who even 
at that time of encyclopaedic erudition was regarded as a 
prodigy of learning ; and Robert and Henri Bstienne, who 
may be mentioned as representatives of the large number of 
sch'olar-printers who did for France what Aldo Manuzio and 
his successors had done and were doing for Italy. The labours 
of these men, and of many others whom we need not now 
pause to catalogue, placed France during the sixteenth century 
in the front rank of European scholarship. 

The mention just made of the Estiennes will serve to remind 
us how much the progress of humanism and the dissemination 
of its influence depended in France as in other countries upon 
the agency of that '' most formidable instrument of the modern 
reason," the printing-press. Into the much-discussed question 
of the origin of the art of printing by movable types it is not 
necessary that, we should now enter. In the matter of begin- 
nings it is enough for us to note that the first press in France 
was set up at the Sorbonne in 1470, and that only three years 
later a rival firm was already busy in Paris. Owing to the 
slow progress of the new learning, the books printed in France 
down to nearly the close of the fifteenth century were not, as 
in Italy, editions of the classics or commentaries upon them, 
but in the main romances in the vernacular, volumes of 
devotion, and manuals of philosophy in the old scholastic style. ^ 
But here again we have to emphasize the significance of 
1 Tilley, Literature of the French Renaissance, p. 158. 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

Charles VIII's expedition into Italy, for from 1495 onward 
the issue of classical books, both reprints and dissertations, 
showed a steady increase. The use of types for Creek works 
was not, however, introduced till 1507. 

As we have spoken of the personal influence of Fran9ois I 
in the French Renaissance, it may be well to observe in passing^ 
that though he was chiefly interested in literature and art, he 
did something also to foster classical scholarship. For example, 
he appointed I^efevre d'fitaples as tutor to one of his sons, 
and gave Bude a position at his Court as valet de chambre with 
a pension of 240 livres a year. In other more important ways, 
too, humanism profited by his patronage. When in 1533 the 
bigoted authorities of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the progress 
of the new learning, which they early perceived to be hostile 
to the entire order of thought of which they were the great 
pillars, agitated for the prohibition of printing, Frangois 
rejected their petition. On the initiative of Bude he founded 
the College de France expressly for the promotion of classical 
studies along the new lines, and though, after his volatile 
fashion, he soon ceased to give much attention to it, the 
institution was henceforth a centre of enlightenment and a 
bulwark against obscurantist reaction. He also established 
at Fontainebleau a depository for the collection of manuscripts 
and books which was the germ of the later Biblioth^que 
Royale, and of which Bude was the first keeper, though the 
charge soon passed into the hands of a less eminent scholar, 
Pierre Gilles. 

From the point of view of general culture and civilization, 
which is the only aspect of it which concerns us here, the 
importance of the revival of classical learning and of the 
whole movement which we epitomize under the term humanism 
is to be sought in their far-reaching influence upon life. The 
word Renaissance meant, to begin with, the rebirth of pagan 
antiquity in art and letters, and in the strict sense this of 
course is still its primary significance. Yet more broadly we 
may take it to describe that entire intellectual rebirth which 
contact witji the rediscovered world of Greece and Rome was 

H9 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

largely instrumental in bringing about. As I have elsewhere 
written, " In classical literature a generation of men who 
were still haunted by the cramping traditions of medievalism 
read the watchword of emancipation. They found in it an 
emphatic assertion of the long-neglected claims of nature and 
the dignity and value of the earthly life. The world into 
which it introduced them was a larger and niore varied world 
than they had hitherto known. It suggested possibilities of 
experience of which they had never dreamed. They breathed 
in it an atmosphere charged with new and intoxicating emotions. 
The type of character which it presented to them was very 
different from the pinched and starved humanity which eccle- 
siastical other-worldliness and the superstition of asceticism 
had long held up as the highest standard of spiritual attain- 
ment. To men who had come into contact with the great 
literary masterpieces of Greece and Rome, things about them 
and their own lives could never be the same again. Out 
of the long forgotten pagan past a generous and inspiring 
influence swept in among the dry conventions and the blighting 
formulas of their theology. Their thoughts were liberalized, 
their feelings quickened and expanded. Human nature seemed 
to renew its dignity. The world was filled with beauty and 
fresh meaning." ^ 

The Literature of the French Renaissance 

The period of the Renaissance, therefore, was a period of 
fundamental change in life and thought, and as in this great 
transformation the rebirth of pagan antiquity was thus a chief 
factor, it is important to note that in France, as in England, 
its influences were soon carried far beyond the narrower circle 
of scholarship by the literature which it inspired. At this 
point the value of the work done by numerous translators, 
who became as it were the interpreters of antiquity to the 
larger public, must be fully recognized. Dolet's version of 
some of the Platonic dialogues and of the Tusculans of Cicero, 
Jamyn's of the Iliad and of portions of the Odyssey, Amyot's 

1 The Story of the Renaissance, pp. 73, 74. 
250 




o 







< 

h-T 
W 

< 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

of the biographical and ethical writings of Plutarch,^ to name 
only a few, put some of the treasures of Greek and Latin 
literature into the possession of many readers for whom the 
originals would have remained sealed books. Such work 
helped to charge the general atmosphere of the time with 
the spirit of the new learning. A taste for intellectual things 
was thus aroused among the wealthier classes, who hitherto 
had been almost wholly indifferent to them. The old chivalrous 
conception of manhood began to disappear, and a very different 
conception of the ' gentleman ' — a conception which embraced 
interests and accomplishments altogether out of harmony with 
the ideals of feudal times — arose to take its place. A love 
of knowledge, long treated with contempt as the sign of the 
mere ' clerk,* now came to be regarded as " a true and powerful 
ornament " in life, and not only those connected with the capital 
and Court, but even provincial gentlemen, whose horizon had 
hitherto been bounded by the chase, were concerned to give 
their sons the advantages of a humanistic education. 

The literature which arose in France under the stimulus of 
the revival of learning marks the beginning of that classic 
movement which was to continue through the following century 
and to reach its culmination in the * great age ' of lyouis XIII 
and lyOuis XIV. Not so slavishly as in Italy, but far more 
closely than in England, the men of the Renaissance in France 
followed the lines which had been laid down — once and for all, 
as their superstitious veneration led them to believe — ^by the 
Greek and I^atin masters. The first poet of any note in the 
new age, Clement Marot, who was one of the many writers 
whom P rangois I's sister Marguerite of Navarre gathered 
about her at her Court, remained, indeed, faithful on the 
whole (as did Marguerite herself in her own verse) to the 
traditions of the older French poetry. It is true that he 

^ Amyot's Vies des Hommes illustres (1558) was the most famous and 
widely read work of the kind at the time, and still retains its place among 
the French classics. It has also a special interest for the student of our 
own literature, because it was in turn ' Englished ' by Sir Thomas North, 
whose translation provided Shakespeare with the materials for his Roman 
plays. 

251 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

made some translations from Vergil and Ovid, but except in 
his Eclogues he did not imitate the ancients, and his original 
work shows that the bent of his genius was decidedly against 
classicism. But though only a youth of nineteen when Fran9ois 
came to the throne, Marot really belongs to the outgoing 
generation. The strength of the classic current which had 
now set in was attested soon after his death in exile at Turin 
in 1544, by the formation of the famous Pleiade. Organized 
in 1548, this association was composed, as its name implies, 
of seven members — all save one young, and all enthusiastic 
lovers of poetry and antiquity — Ronsard, du Bellay, Thyard, 
Baif, Belleau, Jodelle, and Dorat. Its object was the regenera- 
tion of French literature on the basis of the classics, and its 
manifesto was contained in du Bellay 's Deffense et Illustration 
de la Langue frangoyse, published in 1549. '^^^ fundamental 
argliment of this remarkable treatise is that all the great types 
of ancient literature — epic, tragedy, comedy (as contrasted 
with 'the current sottie and farce), ode, satire, pastoral, epistle- 
should be resuscitated and naturalized on French soil, and 
that the ancients themselves should be everywhere followed 
implicitly as guides. At the same time a strong plea is made 
for the native tongue. In Italy the tendency had been to 
despise the vernacular as unworthy of the attention of scholars. 
Du Bellay's ideal, on the contrary — and in this, as in all other 
matters, he speaks for his colleagues as well as for himself — is 
a new French literature reproducing what was greatest in the 
literatures of antiquity, but having, not Latin, but French 
as its medium. The importance of this point is obvious ; 
it shows us that, unlike their Italian forerunners, the 
pioneers of classicism in France were not seduced by their 
admiration of the past into the absurd notion that a living 
literature can be produced in a dead language. None the 
less, the Pleiads were firmly convinced that, with all its 
possibilities, French as it existed was too poor for the purposes 
of great poetry, and they therefore argued that it should 
be enriched by a plentiful admixture of words and idioms 
from various other sources^ and especially from the classig 
252 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

tongues. The result, as may be anticipated, was an extra- 
ordinary development of pedantry, from which French poetry 
continued to suffer till a reform was effected by Mialherbe early 
in the century following. As Boileau said of Ronsard, by 
far the greatest of the Pleiade, and a poet of real genius, his 
French muse spoke in I^atin and Greek. 

True to their programme, the members of the brotherhood 
made an heroic attempt to create a new poetry by the revival 
of the principal classic types. Ronsard himself, for example, 
cultivated the ode, taking the Greek ode as his model, and 
boldly essayed, though without success, the regular epic in 
his unfinished La Franciade. The satire and the pastoral 
were forms also employed by independent writers, while the 
Protestant du Bartas, turning classic art to religious themes, 
offered other sustained examples of poetry in the ' grand style ' 
in Judith, Le Triomphe de Foi, and the fragmentary epic of 
creation La Sepmaine {Semaine). But much the most impor- 
tant historically of all these experiments in transplanting 
antique forms was that made in the drama. In his Cleopatre 
and Dido se Sacrifiant Jodelle introduced that Senecan type 
of tragedy which, with slight modifications, was to flourish 
in France unchallenged till the far-off days of Dumas and 
Victor Hugo. 

Meanwhile prose developed more independently and along 
many different lines, with results which are more important 
to us to-day than those attained in verse. It was during the 
sixteenth century, indeed, that the foundations of modern 
French prose literature were firmly laid. The French had 
already shown remarkable aptitude for memoir-writing, and 
this kind of work, together with the kindred form of biography, 
became immensely popular at a time when people everywhere 
were keenly interested in public events and in the personalities 
conspicuously connected with them. Some of these memoirs 
were written by the actors themselves, as in the case of the 
so-called Commentaires of the ferocious soldier of fortune 
Blaise de Montluc, and of the Discours politiques et militaires 
of the Huguenot I^a Noue ; others were the compositions of 

253 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

those who stood very near to the men whose deeds were 
recorded in them, Hke the Vie de Bayard by ' I^e lyoyal Servi- 
teur ' (said to be the Chevalier's secretary, one Jacques de 
Mailles) ; others, again, were compiled by outsiders, like 
the Vie des Hommes illustres and Vie des Dames galantes of 
that famous gossip and snapper-up of unconsidered trifles 
Brantome. Regular history also felt the impulse of the same 
conditions and began to outgrow the methods of the formless 
old chronicle (as, e.g., in Pasquier's Recherches de la France), 
though nothing in this field was yet produced even approxi- 
mating to the high standard set up in Jean Bodin's Methodus 
ad facilem Historiarum Cognitionem — a work which in its 
singularly modern conception of the philosophy of history 
was distinctly in advance* of its time. In the domain of 
theology Calvin's Institution cJiretienne, the French translation 
made by the author himself from the I^atin in which the 
book was first published, is, apart from all question of matter, 
rega'rded as one of the monuments of the new prose. The 
bitter struggles of the age in religion and politics were naturally 
productive of a vast amount of literature, and while most of 
this was merely ephemeral, a few works here and there still 
retain their vitality. Specially noteworthy among these is 
La Satire Menippde, a plea for pacification published after 
Henri IV's coronation by a group of writers belonging to the 
party of the politiques, or moderate men.^ The stir of new 
thought is also to be felt in widespread speculations regard- 
ing the principles underlying the current controversies. From 
this point of view some significance attaches to Bodin's De la 
Repuhliqtie as a philosophical inquiry into the foundations of 
monarchy and a qualified defence of absolutism. But much 
•—more remarkable, of course, are the books which represent 
the radical side. In certain ' advanced ' circles there had 
long been much talk about the popular basis of government, ^ 

* For the politiques see next chapter. The title of the satire — which is 
the j5rst political satire in the language on a large scale — was derived from 
the name of the Greek cynic philosopher, Menippus. 

* Cp. ante, pp. 218-219. 
254 




28. Thk Chateau of Amboise 




29. The Chateau of Bi,ois 



254 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

and this was naturally stimulated both by the study of classical 
antiquity and by the agitation of the Protestants for religious 
and political freedom. This talk now passed into literature. 
In his Franco-Gallia, a work which produced a great sensation 
first in its original I^atin form and later in the French version 
made under the author's supervision, the Huguenot Hotman 
boldly appealed to history for justification of the principle 
that in the last analysis all sovereignty is vested in the people. 
This principle was further asserted on theoretic grounds by 
another adherent of Calvinism, Hubert I^anguet, in his Vindiciae 
contra Tyrannos, which was also widely read in a French 
translation. Both these treatises owe their inspiration to the 
conflict of the Protestants with a persecuting autocracy, and 
thus illustrate the political bearings of the Reformation. But 
views no less revolutionary were independently expressed in 
the Contre Un, ou Discours sur la Servitude volontaire, written 
at the age of twenty-two by Montaigne's dear friend I^a Boetie, 
though not published till some years after his premature death, 
lya Boetie, a professed Catholic, was one of those who had 
nourished his thought with the wisdom of the ancients. But 
he had also been an eye-witness of the horrible brutalities which 
attended the suppression by Montmorency of a popular rising 
against the iniquities of the gabelle in his native province of 
Guyenne, and he had thus had an opportunity of studying the 
evils of despotism in their most monstrous forms. It is true, 
indeed, that he nowhere explicitly refers to contemporary 
events ; but their influence upon his mind is to be seen in the 
passionate protests against injustice and inhumanity which 
run through his philosophical argument in favour of republi- 
canism. Such works as these, small as was their practical 
effect at the time, are memorable as evidences of the rising 
power of that critical spirit in the sphere of politics which 
some two centuries later was to contribute so much to the 
overthrow of the Old Regime. 

It was, however, in general prose that the greatest triumphs 
of the French Renaissance were won. Two of the most illus- 
trious names in the annals of their country's literature belong, 

255 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

indeed, to the sixteenth century — ^the one to the first, the other 
to the second half of it — those of Rabelais and Montaigne. 
Though difficult to classify, Rabelais is usually placed among 
the conteurs} and justly so, since, so far as they can be said 
to belong to any recognizable form at all, his Gargantua and 
Pantagruel may be described as a kind of burlesque roman 
d'adventures. Montaigne, on the other hand, by expanding 
and adapting the popular memoir, really created a very distinct 
and fruitful literary type — the personal essay. But with the 
technical characteristics of these two great writers we are not 
now concerned. Their importance for us lies in the fact that, 
vast as was the difference between them, each was in his own 
way a product and an interpreter of the Renaissance. The ardour 
with which at forty-one, after thirty years of monastic disci- 
pline, Rabelais threw himself into life, itself seems to typify 
the spirit of a generation conscious of emerging from the shadow 
of the cloister into the broad daylight of the world. His 
pages are full of the youthful vigour and the mighty hopes 
of the lusty new age. A humanist to his finger-tips and a man 
of immense scholarship ('' totius encyclopaediae prof undissimus 
abysmus "), he pours out his accumulated stores of learning 
with utter disregard of measure and form. He is often the 
irresponsible buffoon whose rire enorme (as Victor Hugo called 
it) is excited merely by his huge delight in the extravagances 
of his own riotous fancies. When the mood is upon him he 
turns everything into jest and wallows in the mire of obscenity, 
naked and unashamed. But he is at the same time something 
more than a reckless fun-maker. He is an intellectual path- 
finder, Utopian dreamer, satirist, reformer, critic of life. It 
is certain, indeed, that, after their manner, modern students 

* Story-literature of various kinds naturally flourished on a soil which had 
been well prepared by the contes, fabliaux, and romans of the Middle Ages. 
Among the most famous books of fiction of this time is the Heptameron, 
commonly attributed to Marguerite of Navarre, though more probably, in 
large measure at least, the work of some of her courtiers. An imitation of 
the Decamerone, this has a curious interest for the student of manners because, 
while the tales composing it reflect the licentious taste of the age, they are 
turned to a moral purpose under the influence of the pious Queen. 

256 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

are apt to read too much system and too many of their own 
ideas into his writings. Whether, for instance, his three 
fabulous giants, Grandgousier, Gargantua, and Pantagruel, 
are really to_be taken as symbolizing respectively the Middle 
Ages, the period of transition, and the Renaissance may be 
considered doubtful. But the whole trend of his teaching at 
least is unmistakable. He is first and last the uncompromising 
opponent of medievalism in every form, and especially of the 
ascetic ideal fostered by the monastic tradition of other- 
worldliness. He believes in nature, in beauty, in freedom ; 
he proclaims the just claims of the body no less than those 
of the mind ; and his theory of education is based upon the 
Greek principle of the harmonious development of all the 
faculties whose co-operation is necessary to the production 
of a complete humanity. No less typical is the philosophy 
expounded by Mpntaigne. The awakening of personality 
was, as Burckhardt has said, the great sign of the new time, 
and this meant the shifting of the ethical accent from self- 
repression to self-realization and self-expansion, and the asser- 
tion of the right of each individual to the full enjoyment 
of all his powers and opportunities. " The greatest thing in 
the world is for a man to know that he is his own," writes 
Montaigne, and thus sums up the individualistic tendencies 
of the Renaissance in a single pregnant phrase. From this 
point of view even the unabashed egotism of his Essais is 
historically significant. Even more significant are his insatiable 
curiosity and his universal scepticism, The world for him 
was a field of inexhaustible interest, and to get the maximum 
amount of value out of experience was one of his guiding 
principles. At the same time his searching intellect recognized 
neither fixity nor finality in belief. " Que s^ais-je ? " — the 
motto of his title-page — was the key-note of his philosophy of 
life. Amid the strife of creeds he maintains his detached and 
anti-dogmatic position. It is true that he lived and died a 
Catholic, but this fact is of little weight against the influence 
which he exerted for toleration and freedom of conscience 
by the whole tone and drift of his thought. " My own opinions 

R 257 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

are slippery, but I do not change them, for so are the others," 
he explains with his customary frankness. The quest for 
absolute truth must therefore be abandoned as hopeless ; each 
man must be left to his own devices ; and the wisest will 
be content with approximations and qualifications. Thus 
Montaigne's place in the literature of the Renaissance is 
defined. He was the incarnation at once of the inquisitive 
temper of his age and of its new-born spirit of emancipa- 
tion. 

The Renaissance and the Reformation 
J^ Though it would carry us beyond the purpose of this chapter 
to pursue the subject in detail, a few words must be said 
about the relation of the Renaissance in France to the Reforma- 
tion. The revival in rehgion was in origin part of the great 
general intellectual revival. It was, moreover, as is well 
known, directly stimulated by the application of the new 
learning and the critical methods which accompanied it to 
the interpretation of the Scriptures. Hence it was natural 
that many of the leading French humanists and progres- 
sive thinkers — men, for example, like Ivefevre d'fitaples, the 
Kstiennes, Peter Ramus,the daring opponent of the old scholastic 
Aristotelianism, Pare, the eminent surgeon, Bernard Palissy 
and Jean Goujon, the artists, and Rabelais — should have 
been sympathetically disposed toward the Reform movement, 
while some of them were for a time at least avowed adherents 
of it. To them that movement appealed because, as it seemed, 
it brought with it the promise of enlightenment and liberty 
in spiritual things. But when, as they soon learned, Calvinism 
meant, not enlightenment and liberty, but gloomy fanaticism 
and the return of theological despotism in another form, 
their attitude toward it underwent a change. The terrible 
religious wars, whose course we are presently to follow, and 
which for many years drenched the country in blood, were 
also a factor in their reaction. lyong before the century 
closed humanism and the Reformation had definitely parted 
company. 
258 





30. Specimens of Pai^issy Earthenware 



258 



THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 

The Art of the French Renaissance 

Of the Renaissance in art, which meanwhile went on concur- 
rently with that in letters and thought, a very brief account 
will suffice. The growth of a taste for Graeco-Roman archi- 
tecture in France was one result of the '' discovery of Italy." 
But while south of the Alps the classic mode had been restored 
with great rapidity, its progress in France was for some time 
very slow. Gothic architecture, though already, indeed, it had 
lost its primitive purity and had passed into the flamboyant 
stage, was so deeply rooted in French soil that it was not easily 
displaced by an alien form. Hence a lengthy period of transi- 
tion, during which many leading architects sought to combine 
the old manner and the new, retaining the structural principles 
of Gothic, but making a free use of classic details. This mixed 
style, or 'style Francois I,' as it is called, for it flourished in 
the earlier part of that king's reign, was employed especially 
in the country residences of the nobility on the banks of the 
Ivoire, as in the chateaux of Chambord and Blois, while other 
admirable examples of it are to be found in portions of the 
Hotel du Bourgtheroulde, in Rouen, and in the church of 
Saint-Bustache, in Paris. By little and little, however, under 
the influence of Italian architects whom Francois I brought 
to his capital, the Renaissance style gained ground, and after 
a struggle which continued till the middle of the sixteenth 
century its triumph was completed by the native masters 
Pierre I^escot, Philibert Delorme, and Jean Bullant. The 
restoration of the old palace at Fontainebleau was carried out 
for Frangois by Italians, and it was also an Italian, Pietro di 
Cortona, who provided the plans for the new Hotel de Ville. 
But the I^ouvre, begun by Francois in the closing years of his 
life to replace the old lyouvre of the times of Charles V, was 
in the main the work of lycscot, while the palace of the Tuileries, 
which was built for Catherine de Medicis,^ was commenced by 
Delorme and completed by Bullant. These buildings may be 

^ Here and henceforth I adopt the Gallicized form of the name under 
which Catherine de' Medici figures in French history. 

259 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

cited as famous sixteenth-century examples of the new style. 
But many public buildings in provincial towns, belonging to 
the same period, show that the Italian mode had now estab- 
lished itself all over the country. Nor must the social aspect 
of this fundamental change in architectural method be over- 
looked. The old feudal castles of the nobility, built with 
little regard to comfort and with the primary purpose of 
furnishing security in case of siege, now began to make way 
for constructions of lighter character, designed to answer the 
altered needs, as they expressed the modified tastes, of the 
gentilshommes of the rising generation. 

Italian taste in painting and sculpture naturally accom- 
panied Italian taste in architecture. Once more it was foreign 
masters — men like Andrea del Sarto, Francesco Primaticcio, 
an^ Benvenuto Cellini, who worked for Fran9ois I at his Court — 
who gave the first impulse to the new school. In these allied 
arts, however, comparatively little was accomplished by French- 
men' themselves during the period now in question, though 
native sculpture was brilliantly represented by Jean Goujon 
and Germain Pilon. Among the minor arts which mean- 
while were cultivated with success, the beautiful ceramic work 
invented by Bernard Palissy deserves particular mention. 
Palissy was one of the noblest and most striking figures in the 
France of his time. He was not only an artist, he was also 
an indefatigable and enlightened student of nature, and the 
lectures on natural philosophy which he gave for some years 
in Paris have- a noteworthy place in the history of scientific 
thought. But as a Huguenot he was harassed by persecution. 
Imprisoned at Bordeaux and then released by royal edict, he 
escaped death in the massacre of St Bartholomew by special 
grace of Catherine de Medicis, only to be thrown later into 
the Bastille and to die there as a martyr to his faith. Though 
we have nothing more to do with him here, he thus forms a 
connecting link between this digressive chapter and the main 
course of our narrative, to which we now return. 



260 



CHAPTER X 

THE LAST OF THE VALOIS : 

THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE AND 

THE WARS OF RELIGION 

GREAT as were Henri II's shortcomings as a king, his 
premature death was a misfortune, for it left the royal 
power in the hands of a youth of fifteen. Fran9ois II 
reigned only seventeen months (1559-60), and then died of 
chronic blood-poisoning. Feeble in character as in health, and 
wholly wrapped up in his beautiful young wife, Mary Stuart 
(whom we know as Mfiry Queen of Scots), he left all the affairs 
of State to her two uncles, Francois, Duke of Guise, and the 
Cardinal of lyorraine, though the Queen-Mother, Catherine 
de Medicis, was nominally the head of the Government. His 
brother, Charles IX, then ascended the throne at the age of ten, 
and reigned nearly fourteen years (1560-74), almost entirely 
under the domination of his mother. lycaving no issue, he 
in turn was succeeded by his younger brother, Henri III, 
then twenty-two, with whom, in 1589, the line of the Valois 
kings came to a close. 

The thirty years thus covered by the combined reigns of the 
three sons of Henri II were years of fierce tumult and deadly 
peril for the country, for they were the years of the terrible 
Wars of Religion, by which all patriotic feeling was destroyed 
and the very existence of the nation jeopardized, and in which, 
it is computed, more than a million Frenchmen perished. At 
such a critical period France needed a wise and strong king. 
Henri II's sons were neither strong nor wise. The decadent 
offspring of a now exhausted stock, and tainted alike in blood 
and in mind, they were totally unfit to cope with the gigantic 
problems of an age in which riotous passions were let loose 

261 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to work destruction. Poor, sickly Francois was a sovereign 
only in name. Charles, though a man of physical vigour and 
some literary accomplishments, was weak of will, vacillating, 
cunning, and cruel. Henri, who passed his time for the most 
part between monstrous debaucheries and a feminine devotion 
to the toilet, with occasional outbursts of religious fanaticism 
by way of variation, was, so far as government was concerned, 
v/holly the creature of the ascendant influences of the hour. 
Such a succession of ineffective rulers was in the last degree 
disastrous, for not only did the impotence of the throne allow 
the spirit of anarchy to grow unchecked, but it also encouraged 
a furious struggle among those ambitious party leaders who 
saw in such impotence an invitation to snatch at the reins 
of power. Thus personal rivalries, political intrigues, plots and 
counter-plots mingled with the religious animosities of the time 
and made confusion worse confounded. 

Leaders in the Wars of Religion 

It will be convenient to pass in review the chief actors in 
the tragic drama with which this chapter has to deal. 

On the Catholic side the leaders were the three principal 
members of the house of Guise. Francois, the second Duke, 
was an ambitious, insolent, and domineering man, who stopped 
at nothing in the carrying out of his plans. But his military 
genius was conspicuous, and he easily takes rank among the 
greatest captains of his day. This gave him a hold upon the 
soldiers. At the same time his love of rich costumes, the 
splendour of his escort, his rather theatrical deportment, and 
a certain haughty grace of manners which on occasion he knew 
how to assume, made a potent appeal to the popular imagina- 
tion, and helped him more than once in a moment of crisis 
to win the favour of the fickle crowd. His brother, Charles 
the Cardinal, was in many respects his antithesis and comple- 
ment. Handsome, " de noble et grave presence," a scholar, 
an eloquent preacher, a shrewd though hardly a tactful poli- 
tician, he had a capacity for affairs equal to that which Frangois 
exhibited in the field. But, like Fran9ois, he was thoroughly 
262 





31. FRANgois II 



32. Francois of Guisk 





33. The Cardinai< of I^orrainb 



34. HENRI OF Guise 



262 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

self-seeking and unprincipled, and even his zeal for religion, 
which was great, was only an aspect of his passion for self- 
aggrandizement. In temper, too, he was no less brutal and 
autocratic ; he was jealous ; he was vindictive ; he never 
forgot an injury and never forgave it. With the assassination 
of Frangois and the death of Charles, the former's son, Henri, 
the third Duke, came to the front as the great champion of the 
Catholic cause. In him the bitter animus of his family against 
Protestantism was intensified by his father's fate, and religious 
bigotry being thus reinforced by the personal desire for revenge, 
he became one of the principal organizers of the atrocious 
crime of St Bartholomew, and later the head of the Catholic 
I/eague. While neither so great a soldier as his father nor so 
consummate a schemer as his uncle, he resembled them both 
in his unqualified selfishness, and in his determination to make 
the ills of his unhappy country the instruments of his political 
ends. His ambition, indeed, carried him much farther than 
they had ventured. They had been satisfied with their ascen- 
dancy under the existing forms of royalty. He aimed directly 
at the kingship itself. This lust for power proved his doom. 

Opposed to the house of Guise was the princely house of 
Bourbon, the head of which, Antoine, was a cousin on the 
maternal side of Francois, Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of 
Lorraine.^ The Bourbons were next-of-kin to the reigning line, 
Antoine himself being first prince of the blood. This gave 
them the place of honour in the eyes of the people, who regarded 
them as their natural leaders, and looked upon the Guises as 
foreigners. Antoine, however, was scarcely the man to improve 
his advantage, for though he was brave and courteous, his 
easy-going, careless, and fickle nature hopelessly disqualified 
him for decisive action. Through his marriage with Jeanne 
d'Albret, the only daughter of Henri II of Navarre and 
Marguerite of Angouleme, Frangois I's sister, he became 
titular King of Navarre, and the father of the famous Henri 
of Navarre, who was presently to emerge as the great hero 

^ The father of Antoine was a brother of Antoinette, the mother of the 
Guises. 

263 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of the Huguenots ^ and the founder of a new dynasty in 
France. Antoine's younger brother, I^ouis of Bourbon, Prince 
of Conde, was a much stronger man, though not really a 
great one either in character or in genius. When under 
Francois II the Guises became all-powerful in the kingdom, 
the two Bourbons, partly from jealousy and self-interest (which 
seem to have been the main influences with Antoine) and 
partly from real conviction, went over to the Huguenot cause. 
Of that cause Jeanne d'Albret was a strong supporter. 

By far the most important man on the Protestant side, 
however, was the third of the sons of the Seigneur de Chatillon, 
Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. It was during the 
captivity which followed his heroic defence of Saint-Quentin 
that he embraced the Reformed faith, and the cardinal purpose 
of his life thereafter was to obtain complete liberty of conscience 
and worship for his fellow-Protestants. Upright, disinterested, 
sincere to his finger-tips, deeply religious and patriotic, a 
sagacious statesman as well as a brave soldier, Coligny was 
one of the greatest and noblest Frenchmen of the sixteenth 
century. 

Standing between the two rival parties of the Guises and 
the Bourbons, and in a position of immense difficulty and 
danger, was the Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medicis. For 
some years after her marriage with the second son of Francois I 
this extraordinary woman had given few signs of her real 
personality. That marriage had been only a detail in the 
political schernes of the French King and the Pope, and she 
soon found herself lonely and neglected in her new home. 
In these trying circumstances she comported herself with 
singular submissiveness. Bven when her husband became 
King she still remained in the background, never asserting her 
position, and scarcely protesting against the domination at 
Court of Henri's mistress, Diane of Poitiers. It was only on 
the accession of her young and fragile son Fran9ois that her 
real qualities, moral and intellectual, began to appear. Hence- 

1 This word appears to be derived from ' Kigenot ' (German Eidgenosse, 
confederate), a Genevese nickname for the Reformers. 

264 





35- Antoine; of Bourbon 



36. Louis of Bourbon 





37. Admirai, Coi^igny 



38. Jeanne d'Ai;bret 



264 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

forth, till her death in 1589, she was one of the ruling spirits 
of the age. A true child of the Italian Renaissance, she had 
both the love of beauty and the moral insensibility of her race. 
Treacherous, callous, cruel, she was, so far as it is possible for 
a human creature to be so, entirely devoid of conscience. 
The most elementary distinctions of right and wrong did not 
exist for her. Ethical considerations, even of the simplest 
kind, never for a moment entered into her calculations. Of 
the commonest feelings of humanity she knew nothing, and 
she was ignorant alike of compunction and of remorse. The 
one redeeming feature of her character was her devotion to 
her sons ; though this was in fact only an extension of her 
selfishness and a chief cause of her crimes. Determined at all 
costs to maintain their power against the perils which threatened 
it from two different sides, she made it the principal object 
of her policy to turn the struggles of opposed parties to the 
advantage of the Crown. " II faut diviser pour regner " was 
one of her favourite maxims ; acting upon which she indus- 
triously fomented jealousies and dissensions among her enemies 
in the hope of turning against each other the forces which would 
otherwise be directed against the monarchy. Wholly without 
religious instincts, though profoundly superstitious, she regarded 
the conflict of the Churches from the political point of view 
only. She had, indeed, in earlier life exhibited some leanings 
toward Protestantism as the creed of " intellectual people " ; 
while, but for political complications, her indifference might 
easily have led her to toleration. But she soon came to hate 
the Huguenots because, as she saw, the tendency of their 
teaching was against the despotic authority of the throne. 
Yet she did not scruple to make all the use of them she could 
as an offset to the dangerous supremacy of the Guises. Her 
double-dealing with the two religious parties was therefore 
only a matter of strategy. As soon as she was finally convinced 
that her interest lay in the triumph of Catholicism she even 
intrigued with the hated Guises for the complete annihilation 
of the Protestant cause. 

265 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The Reformation in France 

Such were the leading figures on the stage of French history 
during the period of the civil wars. A brief sketch of the 
Reformed religion in France must now be given. 

The beginnings of the great movement may be traced in 
the meetings of a small group of Christian humanists known 
as the Mystics of Meaux, the social and intellectual importance 
of which is- shown by the fact that it numbered among its 
members the tender and devout Marguerite of Angouleme, 
who, according to a contemporary writer, gathered about 
her all the better spirits in France as the wild thyme gathers 
the bees ; Briconnet, the earnest but timid and temporizing 
Bishop of Meaux ; and the distinguished scholar Jacques 
I^efevre d'lStaples, whose translation of the New Testament 
had been inspired by his desire to have Christ *^ preached from 
the sources." Followers of Erasmus rather than of lyUther 
and 'deeply affected by the Platonism of the Florentine humanist 
Marsilio Ficino, these unaggressive seekers after truth, while 
sincerely desirous for the purification of religion, cared far 
less about external changes than about the development of 
the spirit of personal piety. Yet the more militant element 
was not unrepresented among them, for their company included 
the restless, proselytizing Far el, and the image-breaking weaver 
I^eclerc, later burnt at Metz on charges of sacrilege. 

This was in the early years of FrauQois I. For the moment 
little was accomplished, for in these tentative stages the 
Reformation in France wanted leadership and driving power. 
Already, however, it had aroused the hostility of the Sorbonne 
and the Parliament of Paris. At first the King, on his return 
from captivity in Madrid, was inclined to protect its adherents ; 
so it began to spread at Court. The favourite aristocratic 
poet, Marot, who was himself wounded at Pavia, went over to 
Protestantism, and made a translation of the Psalms which 
became popular with the lords and fine ladies ; and thus the new 
views were for a time distinctly fashionable. But, alarmed by 
reports of the disturbances which had followed in the wake of the 
266 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

Reformed religion in Germany, the King began to waver. Then 
the influence of superstition caused him suddenly to change his 
front. In May 1528 news came that a statue of the Virgin 
and Child had been mutilated. The outrage produced a great 
commotion in orthodox circles, and Fran9ois, report says, was 
" so much angered " that " he wept bitterly." The result 
of his panic was that he not only permitted but encouraged 
the persecution of the schismatics ; many were burnt at the 
stake, some of the executions actually taking place in the 
presence of the King and his Court. His policy, indeed, 
changed for a short time while he was seeking alliances 
with Germany and England, but his negotiations with Pope 
Clement VII and the violence of a fanatical section of the 
Reformers led him to renew his attempt to stamp out heresy 
everywhere in his kingdom. Even more drastic measures 
than he had hitherto adopted were now employed ; his severity, 
indeed, going so far that the Pope himself, Paul III, found 
it politic to remonstrate. But the pause which followed upon 
the strange papal interference was for a short time only. 
Persistent and ruthless persecution marked the closing years 
of Frangois' reign, and his policy in this respect was carried 
out far more consistently and even more rigorously by his 
son. 

Meanwhile the Reform movement had not only been spread- 
ing widely throughout the country, but had also been undergoing 
a significant change of character. It had become an organized 
movement with a definite creed and programme. For this 
change Calvin was largely responsible. The publication in 
1535 of his Instituts de la Religion chretienne, with its famous 
preface addressed to Francois I, is a landmark in the history 
of French Protestantism. That epoch-making work was, in- 
deed, produced in Switzerland ; but its author was a French- 
man, and as such made a more direct appeal to his countrymen 
than had ever been made by foreigners like I^uther and Zwingli. 
His manifesto infused new energy into the Reform party, while 
at the same time his system of Protestant theology and ethics, 
claiming as it did the fixity and finality of the older creed, 

267 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

became a nucleus about which French rehgious thought quickly 
consolidated. Protestantism now gained substance and defi- 
niteness as well as popularity. Many members of the nobility 
and of the wealthy middle classes openly went over to it. 
In 1555 began the formation of regular churches. In 1559 
the first national Synod met, and compiled a Confession of 
Faith and a Book of Discipline. Persecution had helped much in 
this notable development, because, overreaching itself, it had 
created a reaction in favour of the persecuted. The efforts 
of the Government to extirpate heresy and schism were not 
relaxed ; but the new faith continued to make progress. 

Such was the situation when, with the accession of Fran9ois II, 
the Cardinal of Lorraine became the controlling power in the 
internal administration of the realm. His unqualified antago- 
nism to the Reformers was at once apparent. In the last days 
of the former King's reign there had been a great scene in the 
Parliament of Paris, when Anne du Bourg (son of one of 
Frafi9ois I's chancellors) and several other members had taken 
a bold stand for justice and toleration. The offenders were 
arrested by command of the King. His death did not stop 
their trial, nor did the protest of the Synod, then in session, 
affect its issue. They were promptly condemned to the stake, 
though du Bourg alone was executed. His cruel fate, and 
the dignified courage with which he met it, made a deep 
impression upon the populace, while his dying speech, according 
to a contemporary, " made more converts among the students 
of Paris than -all the writings of Calvin." After this persecu- 
tion continued with ever-increasing violence, with the result 
that ultimately the passions of the Protestants were aroused, 
and whereas they had hitherto borne their sufferings with 
Christian meekness, they now began to talk of armed resistance 
to the Guises and their unrighteous rule. Thus the religious 
movement became a political movement as well. This meant 
an accession of strength indeed, but of a kind which was likely 
to prove almost as dangerous to the Reformers as to their 
enemies. For the high-handed conduct of the Duke and the 
Cardinal had stirred up hatred throughout the land, and the 
268 



THE W.ARS OF RELIGION 

ranks of the Protestants were now swelled by vast numbers 
of malcontents who had little or no sympathy with their 
doctrines. Demands were made that the Guises should be 
dismissed and their place in the King's councils be taken by 
the Princes of the Blood. 

Matters came to a head in 1560 in a plot — ' the tumult of 
Amboise '—to seize the King's person and, if necessary, to 
proclaim the Prince of Conde Governor-General of the kingdom. 
But the conspiracy was badly planned and even more badly 
managed ; news of it leaked out ; and the Duke of Guise 
crushed it with barbarous severity. Twelve hundred Protes- 
tants perished at the hands of the executioner, many of the 
victims being hanged or their heads exposed on the doors 
and battlements of the castle of Amboise, to which the Court 
had been removed — an arrangement made, says a chronicler, 
expressly for the distraction of some of the ladies, " who were 
getting bored at staying so long in one place." Conde himself 
was arrested later and condemned to death ; but the new 
Chancellor, Michel de I'Hopital, a man of sound sense and 
moderate views, refused to sign the warrant, and so saved 
his life. ly'Hopital also prevented the introduction of the 
Inquisition into France, now advocated by the Guises, and 
by the Edict of Romorantin (May 18, 1560) transferred the 
prosecution of heretics from the Parliaments to the bishops' 
courts. Whether or not well-advised, this move was made 
in the interests of peace. 

The Regency of Catherine de Medicis 

At this juncture FrauQois II died, and on the accession of 
the ten-year-old Charles IX Catherine de Medicis became 
Regent of France. To placate the Bourbon party — ^for there 
v^as at the moment a strong popular feeling in favour of the 
Princes of the Blood — she released Conde and appointed 
Antoine of Bourbon I^ieutenant-General of the kingdom. At 
the same time, to check the power of the Guises, she found 
herself forced into a policy of conciliation in regard to the 
Huguenots. Shortly before the late King's death it had 

269 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

been arranged that the States-General should be convened, 
and in December 1560 they met — ^for the first time for more 
than fifty years — at Orleans. The opening speech of the 
Chancellor made it clear that the Regent and her counsellors 
desired to put an end to the bloody conflict of the creeds, and 
to devise some means by which a common ground of agreement 
might be found for those who, great as were, their differences 
of opinion, were after all men of the same race, living under 
the same laws. The subsequent debates showed that on this 
central question of religion the States were hopelessly divided. 
The clergy, while advocating the reform of the Church, 
demanded the extermination of heresy. The Third Estate 
asked for complete toleration and freedom of worship. The 
nobles of Central France sided with the clergy ; those of the 
we^t with the Third Estate ; the remainder contented them- 
selves with urging that both religious parties should be made 
to keep the peace and that punishment for heresy should be 
visited upon preachers only. 

The reply of the Government took the form of a promise 
to consider the abuses detailed in the cahiers, joined with a 
general amnesty. Unfortunately, however, even this measure 
of pacification proved the starting-point of renewed troubles. 
Emboldened by the suspension of persecution, and treating 
the concessions made as meaning more than was really intended, 
the Huguenots proceeded to the open practice of their religious 
rites. This inflamed the more bigoted Catholics ; there were 
anti-Protestant riots in Paris and in the country ; in many 
places the Huguenots retaliated by attacking churches and 
destroying relics. Once more the Government had to interfere. 
An edict of July 1561 prohibited under severe penalties the 
public performance of any religious ceremonies other than 
those of the Catholic Church, while at the same time it forbade 
any interruption of Protestant services in houses. Upon this 
Coligny wrote to his fellow-Protestants that they had nothing 
to fear so long as they continued to worship in private. 

Meanwhile the Government had taken the bold step of 
calling a conference of Catholic and Protestant divines. This 
270 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

met at Poissy in September, the Protestants being represented 
by twelve ministers under the leadership of Theodore de Beze, 
or Beza, whose fame as a scholar and controversialist was firmly 
established. The King, the Queen-Mother, and the Princes 
of the Blood were all present at the opening session. The 
Chancellor in his inaugural speech made a strong plea for peace 
and religious union ; Beza stated the Protestant case with 
great power and clearness ; the Cardinal of lyorraine replied 
in a tone of acrimonious partisanship. In ensuing sessions 
the discussion degenerated into personalities and wr anglings. 
Nothing came of this ' colloquy ' except the Edict of January 
1562, which authorized a reformed public worship outside the 
walled towns though not within them. This for the first time 
granted to the Huguenots a certain amount of public liberty. 
Yet on the whole, like most half-measures, it was ill-advised. 
Either it went too far or it did not go far enough. It was 
intended as an eirenicon. In fact it annoyed the one side 
without thoroughly satisfying the other. It gave, it is true, 
an immense impetus to Protestantism. But precisely for this 
reason it justified the fears of the Triumvirate — ^the Constable 
Montmorency, the Duke of Guise, and the Marshal Saint- Andre, 
who had now banded themselves together to prevent by all 
possible means the further spread of the new religion among 
the people and at Court. 

A deplorable incident which took place only six weeks after 
the promulgation of this edict fanned the smouldering fires 
of sectarian hostility into a mighty blaze. On Sunday, March i, 
accompanied by his brother the Cardinal, his wife and children, 
and a large escort of gentlemen and retainers, the Duke of 
Guise on his way from Joinville to Paris stopped at Vassy 
to hear Mass. Close by the church was a barn in which, in 
defiance of the Edict of January (for Vassy was a walled town), 
a body of Protestants was engaged in public worship. These 
" gens scandaleux, arrogans, et fort temeraires " were for the 
most part the Duke's own subjects, and he was furious on 
discovering such a flagrant outrage upon his authority. He 
sent some of his suite to order them instantly to desist. The 

271 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Protestants barred their doors. The Duke's men endeavoured 
to force an entrance. The besieged repHed with a volley of 
stones, and several of the Duke's following and the Duke 
himself were struck. His escort thereupon opened fire with 
their arquebuses. The tumult was turned into a massacre, 
in which twenty-three Protestants were killed on the spot and 
more than a hundred wounded. News of the butchery soon 
found wing. The extreme Catholics hailed it as a victory, 
and went wild with enthusiasm when Guise marched in triumph 
into Paris. Other massacres of the Reformers followed in 
different parts of the country. At Toulouse 3000 of them 
were slain — men, women, and children — ^in cold blood, and 
in circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Sometimes for self- 
defence, sometimes goaded "by the desire for vengeance, the 
Prptestants began to arm themselves. Reprisals on their 
side were numerous. They slew priests ; they pillaged 
churches ; they were guilty of countless acts of violence and 
vandalism. In addition, hundreds of them flocked to Paris 
to place themselves under the orders of the Prince of Conde, 
who had declared himself their leader, the unstable Duke of 
Bourbon having now gone over to the Triumvirate. The 
capital seethed with excitement. A battle of factions in the 
streets seemed imminent. Catherine at first endeavoured to 
effect a compromise. Had the Protestants in this crisis rallied 
to the throne, she would certainly have upheld them ; but 
they made the mistake of adopting an inimical attitude, and 
as a result she now took her stand with the Catholic party. 
A decree of July 13, 1562, proclaimed the Protestants rebels 
and placed them outside the pale of the law. 

The war which followed was characterized by extraordinary 
ferocity on one and the other side, the spirit of cruelty which 
is usually bred of civil conflict being further intensified by 
religious fanaticism. The Catholic army, under Guise and 
Montmorency, was reinforced by Philip of Spain, that of the 
Protestants, under Conde and Coligny, by Elizabeth of England. 
In the south the fighting was mainly of a loose, guerrilla kind. 
The decisive actions took place in the north. In September 
272 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

the Catholic troops captured Rouen, after a long siege in 
which the Duke of Bourbon was mortally wounded. In 
December a fierce battle was fought at Dreux, in which both 
the Constable Montmorency and the Prince of Conde were 
taken prisoners. Following up this victory the Duke of Guise 
marched on Orleans, which he invested on February 5, 1563. 
On the i8th of that month he was shot from behind by a 
Huguenot from Saintonge, and died six days later. Though 
the war had on the whole gone against the Huguenots, Catherine 
was now anxious to make peace. This was secured by a 
treaty which she signed with Conde at Amboise, by which 
Protestant worship was authorized in the houses of the nobility 
and in one city in each hailliage. But this agreement was 
very unfavourably regarded by the Reformers in general, who 
had taken their stand on the Edict of January 1562, and Conde 
was condemned for having been persuaded or tricked into its 
acceptance. Coligny reproached him because he had secured 
the rights of his own class and sacrificed those of the poorer 
brethren of the faith. Calvin accused him of betraying God. 
Though the peace made on this unsatisfactory basis lasted 
five years, during which the Chancellor de I'Hopital sought 
to turn public attention to various much-needed political 
reforms, the country continued in a state of religious unrest. 
The Catholics were irritated by even the measure of liberty 
which had been accorded to their enemies. At the same 
time the course of events both at home and abroad could not 
fail to fill the Protestants with alarm. The third session of 
the Council of Trent (1562-63) showed that the attitude of 
the heads of the Roman Church was one of uncompromising 
and bitter opposition, and that the breach between the old 
doctrines and the new was permanent. The Jesuits were 
actively engaged in the work of propagandism among the 
masses. The Counter-Reformation was in full swing. Philip 
of Spain, who had already attempted to interfere with Catherine's 
efforts for pacification, had now made the Catholic cause in 
Europe his own. The temper of the Court was becoming 
increasingly hostile, and a very bad feeling was created when 

s 273 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the Queen-Mother met in conference at Bayonne (1564) Philip's 
chief minister, the infamous Duke of Alva. That feeling was 
deepened two years later when the Duke began his crusade 
of extermination among the Protestants of the I^ow Countries. 
Rightly or wrongly, the Huguenots came to believe that a 
similar crusade was to be directed against themselves. Their 
fears prompted aggressive action, and the Second War of 
Religion broke out (1566). Conde blockaded Paris, and at an 
indecisive battle fought at Saint-Denis (November 10, 1567) 
the old Constable Montmorency was killed. Through the 
good offices of I'Hopital a peace was finally patched up at 
lyongjumeau (March 23, 1568) on the basis of the re-estab- 
lishment without qualification or restriction of the Edict of 
Amboise. 

Henri of Navarre 

This agreement, however, brought only a moment's pause 
in the hostilities. The passions of the Huguenots were kept 
at fever-heat by news of the bloody work which Alva was 
now doing in the Netherlands, while Catherine's fresh edict 
forbidding under pain of death the public exercise of their 
religion and ordering all their ministers to leave the country 
within a fortnight proved how little confidence was to be 
placed in the promises of the Government even when backed 
by formal treaties. Barely escaping a plot to capture them, 
Conde and Coligny now sought refuge in the Protestant strong- 
hold of lya B-ochelle, where they were joined by the heroic 
Jeanne d'Albret and her son, a boy of fifteen — Henri of 
Navarre. War, which had scarcely ceased, burst out anew. 
But things went ill with the Huguenots. At Jarnac (March 13, 
1569) they suffered a serious reverse at the hands of Marshal 
Tavannes, and lost their leader, the Prince of Conde, who, 
badly wounded, was in the act of surrendering when he was 
treacherously shot by a captain of the guards of the Duke of 
Anjou. Coligny, now the real head of the Protestants, though 
young Henri of Navarre was appointed general-in-chief, made 
an heroic attempt to retrieve this disaster ; but though suc- 
274 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

cessful at I^a Roche-Abeille, he was completely defeated at 
Moncontour (October 3, 1569). Reinforcements, however, 
enabled him to hold the field, and the obstinate spirit of the 
Protestants, who declared that they were ready to fight till 
their last man was slain, convinced Catherine that it was use- 
less to prolong the struggle. Again she tried conciliation, and 
by the Edict of Saint-Germain (August 8, 1570) granted to 
the Huguenots liberty of public worship wherever it was already 
established, in the residences of the nobles, and in the suburbs 
of at least two cities in each province, admitted them to all 
employments, and further confirmed them in the possession 
of four cities — ^La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and I^a 
Charite. These terms were far more favourable than any 
they had previously obtained. It seemed, indeed, as if, not- 
withstanding the indignation of the more bigoted Catholics, 
they provided the foundations of a lasting peace. As such 
at least Coligny appeared to accept them. He retired to 
Iva Rochelle and occupied himself with constructive work for 
the cause and with the education of the two young Bourbon 
princes — Henri of Navarre and his cousin Henri of Conde — 
who had been placed under his care. 

Catherine's next move was to strengthen her hold upon 
the Huguenots, and perhaps to lull them into a false sense 
of security, by matrimonial alliances which would appeal to 
their sympathies. Her scheme to make one of her sons the 
husband of Elizabeth of England failed. But her overtures 
for the marriage of her daughter Marguerite to Henri of Navarre 
were, after some delay, favourably received by the young 
Prince's mother and by Coligny. The design was also 
encouraged by Charles IX, who now at the age of twenty-one 
woke up suddenly to his position and began to grow restive 
under his mother's rigorous control. This self-assertion on his 
part introduced yet another element into the complex situation. 
Charles seems to have become jealous of Philip of Spain, and 
this jealousy combined with the newly awakened spirit of 
opposition to Catherine to make him for the time being 
openly friendly to the Protestant party. Coligny was invited to 

27s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Court ; treated with honour, Hstened to with respect. Catherine 
remonstrated. The Catholic nobles were wild with anger. 
But Charles took no heed. Then Jeanne arrived to make 
final arrangements for her son's marriage. She reached the 
capital in May 1572. On the 4th of June she fell suddenly- 
ill. On the 9th she died. The report got abroad that she 
had been poisoned by command of the Queen-Mother by an 
Italian perfumer in her suite. The accusation has never been 
proved, and may probably be dismissed as a fabrication. But 
it is certain that Catherine had already begun to consider 
the possibility of accomplishing by treachery what she could 
not accomplish by force. In Charles' hostile attitude toward 
Philip II she saw a danger which must be averted at all costs. 
As England had refused to be drawn into an alliance with 
France, an alliance with Spain had become a necessity. Coligny, 
ndw the most influential statesman in the land, stood between 
her and her plans, and must therefore be got out of the way. 
The- force of circumstances thus drove her back upon the 
Guises, whose bitterness against Coligny and the Hugue- 
nots in general had been greatly increased by their recent 
successes. 

The Massacre of St Bartholomew 

The chance to strike a blow which she meant to be final 
came on the occasion of the marriage of her daughter with 
the young Prince, who was now since his mother's death the 
King of Navarre. The wedding took place on August 18, 
and Paris was crowded with Huguenot gentlemen who had 
come from all parts of the country to join in the celebration 
and to do honour to their chief. Three days later an event 
occurred which hastened the inevitable crisis. As Coligny 
was leaving the lyouvre on his way back to his lodgings he 
was fired at from a grated window in a house belonging to 
one of the Guise following, by a professional assassin named 
Maurevel. The shot failed of its purpose, but it carried away 
the admiral's right index finger and wounded him in the left 
arm. That this attempt at murder was made at the instigation 
276 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

or at least with the connivance of Catherine there is not the 
sHghtest reason to doubt. Its effect upon the Huguenots in 
Paris may be imagined. News of it was carried to Charles 
while he was playing tennis. With an exclamation of anger 
he threw down his racket and retired in great agitation to 
his own apartments. There he was found by the King of 
Navarre and Henri of Conde, who demanded that the out- 
rage should be promptly punished. Coligny also requested a 
personal interview with the King, but Catherine, fearing to 
leave the two alone, insisted upon accompanying him with 
several of her closest advisers. At the wounded man's bedside 
Charles swore a solemn oath that he would have swift and 
terrible vengeance for the crime. Catherine now stood in 
dread lest her responsibility for it should be revealed. Paris 
meanwhile was in a state of intense excitement. Both parties 
were under arms. An outbreak of hostilities seemed certain. 
Then the Queen-Mother called a council of her most trusted 
adherents. Precisely what happened at their deliberations will 
never be known. But one step was determined. It was 
the murder of Coligny and a general massacre of all the 
Huguenots in Paris. 

The plans were carefully laid and punctually carried out. 
A little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, August 24 — St 
Bartholomew's Day — ^the tocsin sounded from the city churches, 
and before the early summer dawn the slaughter began. 
Coligny was killed in his bedroom and his corpse thrown out 
of the window into the street, where it was kicked by the 
Duke of Guise. All the Huguenots in the Ivouvre were put 
to the sword. Then, urged on by the Duke, soldiers and 
civilians divided into parties, and with hoarse cries of " Tuez ! 
Tuez ! " went from house to house throughout the city, slaying 
all who were even suspected of heresy, and pillaging their 
homes. " Anger, blood, and death," writes a contemporary 
chronicler, "filled the streets with such horror that even their 
Majesties, who were the authors of it, could not restrain their 
fear in the lyouvre. Paris was like a conquered city. . . . 
All the Huguenots, including men, women, and children, were 

277 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

killed indifferently."^ At nightfall, when bands of lawless 
ruffians were let loose on the heels of the assassins to indulge 
in a debauch of butchery and looting, the terrors of the day 
reached their height, and it was some days before the killing 
and the rioting were ended. Altogether several thousands 
of the Protestants fell — 2000 at least, though some accounts 
say 4000 and some even 10,000. The twp yoUng Bourbon 
princes — ^the King of Navarre and his cousin — escaped only 
by consenting to go to Mass. Charles, who at the outset had 
opposed the massacre, was soon swept away by the lust of 
blood, and, it is said, revelled in the ghastly spectacle upon 
which he looked from the windows of his palace. The story 
even runs — it is a story made familiar to us by the brilliant 
pages of Dumas ^ — ^that he took an arquebus and amused himself 
by shooting at the flying Protestants in the streets below, as if 
they were beasts of chase. This may be dismissed as a legend. 
But on Tuesday, August 26, he publicly assumed before the Par- 
liaihent of Paris full responsibility for what had taken place. 

Then the fury of fanaticism spread from Paris to other 
cities, and there were general massacres of Huguenots at 
Meaux, La Charite, Orleans, Saumur, Angers, Lyon, Troyes, 
Bourges, Rouen, Toulouse, Bordeaux. Only in a few places 
did the authorities make the slightest attempt to restrain the 
passions of the mob. 

News of these atrocities caused an immense sensation 
throughout Europe. The Protestant nations were of course 
filled with horror,^ and even the German Catholic princes 
expressed their disapproval. But the Pope had a medal 
struck in honour of the victory of the faith, and Philip II when 
he heard of the massacre is said to have laughed outright — for 
the first and only time in his life. 

Catherine had confidently expected that this great stroke 
would be the death-blow to Protestantism and end all her 

^ Tavannes, Memoires, chap, xxvii. 

* La Reine Margot, chap. x. 

' How long the memory of them lingered in England is shown, e.g., by 
Spenser's reference in The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto VIII, Stanza vi — 
published eighteen years later. 

278 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

troubles with the Huguenots. She was now to learn her 
mistake. " These wretches," as she called them, were stunned 
but not crushed. Disorganized and leaderless as they now 
were, they soon took heart anew and began to rally to the 
cause. It became necessary to drive them from their strong- 
holds, of which the most important were I^a Rochelle on the 
west coast and Sancerre in Berry. This brought about the 
fourth civil war. Sancerre was quickly starved into sub- 
mission ; but La Rochelle offered a stubborn resistance to 
the besiegers, who in the end had to abandon the attack. 
Nimes, Montauban, and many other cities in the south also 
kept their gates obstinately closed against the Government 
troops. Growing opposition among the more moderate 
Catholics at Court to the fiercely intolerant policy of the 
Guises weakened the hands of the King, and in July 1573 
the Peace of La Rochelle granted to the Protestants liberty 
of conscience and the right of public worship in La Rochelle 
itself, in Nimes, and in Montauban. Such concessions really 
meant a restriction of the privileges which in theory at any 
rate the Reformers had hitherto enjoyed. But the extremists 
of the Catholic party were angry and the King was mortified 
that the Huguenots should have been recognized at all, and, 
to make matters worse, the treaty was signed just at the 
time when Charles was receiving the congratulations of Rome 
and Spain on the bloody triumph of the Church. Even when 
it was made there was no hope that such a treaty could prove 
lasting. 

On Whitsunday of the following year Charles died of a 
frightful disease which for some time had been wearing him 
away, though his end, it is believed, was hastened by remorse 
over the part he had played in the massacre of his subjects. 
Ever since that fearful crime he had been a prey to morbid 
melancholy, and at the last visions of his victims haunted him, 
while in his frequent attacks of delirium he saw blood every- 
where about him and was shaken by agonies of horror. In 
these awful hours of dissolution he was abandoned by all his 
attendants except his old Huguenot nurse. 

279 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Henri III 

His brother, Henri, Duke of Atijou, who through his mother's 
machinations had recently been made King of Poland, was 
now called to the throne. Abandoning his crown and his 
subjects, Henri fled from Cracow by night ; but, lingering 
on the way to enjoy the pleasures of Vienna and Venice, he 
did not enter Paris until two months after Charles' death. On 
February 15, 1575, he was at length crowned at Reims by the 
Cardinal Guise, the third Duke's youngest brother, the Cardinal 
of lyorraine having died in the previous December. During 
the coronation ceremony, a chronicler reports, he complained 
aloud that the crown hurt him, " and it slipped off his head 
twice, as if he wished it to fall." Such behaviour made a 
very bad impression upon the French people, and his effeminacy, 
hfs favouritism, his fondness for worthless companions, and 
the scandalous stories which soon leaked out regarding the 
debaucheries of his private life quickly turned their disappoint- 
ment into disgust. His accession, however, made little differ- 
ence to the situation except in one particular. Catherine, whose 
authority had in some measure been challenged by the late 
King during his closing years, now once more became the 
effective head of affairs. 

The Treaty of I^a Rochelle had not really put a stop to the 
fighting, which continued in an irregular way in various parts 
of the country. Fresh encouragement was now given to the 
Huguenots by the action of Henri of Navarre, who, contriving 
at length to evade the surveillance of those who had been 
appointed his guardians in the interests of the Court, took up 
his quarters in Poitou, and publicly renounced his enforced 
adherence to Catholicism. In the meantime opposition to 
the Guises was shaping itself definitely in a third party, called 
the politiques, whose avowed object was the restoration of 
peace to the distracted country by means of general toleration 
and the firm repression of all factions whether on the Catholic 
or on the Protestant side. The King's brother, the Duke of 
Alen^on, placed himself at the head of this new movement 
280 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

for pacification, and though he was himself inspired by motives 
rather of personal ambition than of patriotism, his leadership 
gave it strength. Henri did not conceal his anger at his 
brother's defection ; and, realizing that his life was in danger 
so long as he remained at Court, the Duke made good his 
escape and hastened to the south, where an alliance was formed 
between the politiques and the Protestants. The Duke of 
Guise's success against the German soldiers of the Huguenots 
at Dormans was offset by the gathering of a strong Protestant 
force under Conde and the Duke of Alen9on at Moulins, and 
again Catherine found it necessary to come to terms. Acting 
as mediator, Alengon successfully negotiated the Peace of 
Beaulieu — otherwise known, from his title, as ' the Peace of 
Monsieur ' ^ (May 1576) — ^by which he gained for himself the 
duchy of Anjou, for the King of Navarre Guyenne, and for 
Conde Picardy, while for the Protestants at large he obtained 
the right of public worship everywhere except in Paris and at 
Court. The Protestants also received eight strongholds or cities 
of refuge, while chambers of justice, called mi-parties, because 
they were composed half of Protestants and half of Catholics, 
were set up in each provincial Parliament. 

The League 

This, however, was once more a peace which was no peace. 
The irreconcilables among the Catholics were a fatal obstacle 
to the fulfilment of its conditions. Indignant at what seemed 
to them the entire betrayal of their cause, they determined 
to renew their resistance, and sought to consolidate their 
strength. In many parts of the country leagues had been 
formed among the zealous Catholics for the active defence of 
their faith. It was a natural step from these to a vast general 
association through which the forces of the anti-Huguenot 
party throughout the land should be definitely organized. 
Such was the origin of the famous Union Catholique, or Sainte 
Ligue (1576), which rapidly grew to formidable proportions in 
almost every part of France. According to its constitution, 
^ ' Monsieur ' was the title now borne by the King's younger brother. 

281 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

all Catholics were bound to join it under pain of being otherwise 
accounted its enemies, and to lend it all the help in their 
power for the maintenance of the Holy CathoHc Church. Its 
avowed object was the total extermination of Protestantism 
by any and every means which might be found available for 
the purpose, while ostensibly it also aimed to support the 
King against his rebel subjects. But the secret plan of its 
real instigator and leader, the Duke of Guise, was to use it 
as an instrument against the King and for the achievement of 
his own personal ambitions. Henri was becoming more and 
more unpopular. His brother, the Duke of Anjou, was under 
suspicion by reason of his relations with the Huguenot chiefs. 
After him, the next-of-kin to the sovereign were the heretical 
Bourbons. In these circumstances the Duke of Guise believed 
th^t with the assistance of Philip of Spain and the Holy See 
he might carve out a way to the throne. 

The States-General which the King had promised in the 
Treaty of Beaulieu to convoke met at Blois in December 1576. 
Their election had been controlled by the I^eague, and Protes- 
tantism was practically unrepresented. Extremist counsels 
therefore prevailed. Henri repudiated the ' Peace of Monsieur,* 
and at the same time, in the hope of checkmating the Duke 
of Guise, publicly declared himself the head of the League. 
The clergy and the nobles, supported by a majority of the 
Third Estate, demanded the immediate suppression of the 
Reformed religion and the banishment of its ministers, elders, 
and deacons. ^ 

This led to the Sixth War of Religion (1577), which after 
some months of unimportant fighting was closed by the Treaty 
of Bergerac (1578). The terms now granted to the Protestants 
were not on the whole so fa^^ourable as those of the Edict of 
Beaulieu. But they were better than might have been expected. 
The separate existence of the Protestant Church was definitely 
recognized ; while, still acting in accordance with his anti- 
Guise policy, the King struck a blow at its chief enemy, the 
League itself, by prohibiting " all leagues, associations, and 
fraternities, now formed or to be formed on any pretext what- 
282 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

soever." A seventh war, the cause of which can be traced only 
in the general and increasing disorganization of the country, 
raged for a short time in 1580, and ended in November with 
the Peace _of Fleix, by which the Treaty of Bergerac was 
reaffirmed. 

Three years of comparative repose now followed. Then 
trouble began again with the death in June 1584 of the Duke 
of Anjou, who meanwhile had been helping the Flemings against 
Philip of Spain. This brought the question of succession once 
more to the front. It was obvious to all that Henri III, 
already v/orn out with his debaucheries, could not live more 
than a few years ; he had no son, and the heir to the throne 
was therefore the Protestant King of Navarre. The King 
saw that the only way in which he could hope to secure peace 
was in persuading Henri of Navarre to become a Catholic. 
But this Henri refused to do. The Catholic leaders thus found 
themselves face to face with the fact that in all probability a 
Protestant prince would very soon be called upon to assume 
the crown of France. This danger stung them into imme- 
diate aggressive action. The I^eague was revived and reor- 
ganized ; Henri of Navarre was declared to be disinherited, 
and his uncle, Charles, the old Cardinal of Bourbon, was put 
forward in his place, though this was only a screen to hide 
for a time the pretensions of the Duke of Guise, who was 
now working steadily toward the realization of his schemes. 
Then a treaty was made (December 1584) with Phihp of Spain 
for the extirpation of all heresy and schism throughout the 
kingdom. But Henri of Navarre rose to the occasion, answered 
the manifesto of the I^eague with a counter-manifesto, in which 
he charged its chiefs with direct responsibility for all the evils 
from which France had so long suffered, and drew to his side 
not only the Huguenots, but also the poliiiques. The King 
now found himself between two fires. A reign of terror had 
already begun in the cities where the I^eague was strongest. 
In Paris, which was completely in its power, the spirit of 
fanaticism ran high. The King tried to temporize ; but, 
finding this impossible, he fell back upon the Guise party ; 

283 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

under his mother's advice he negotiated a treaty with them 
(July 1585), and issued an edict rescinding all privileges 
formerly granted to the Reformers and forbidding everywhere 
the public exercise of their religion. The Pope, Sixtus V, 
now came to the support of the League with a bull which 
proclaimed that as a heretic Henri of Navarre was incapable 
of succeeding to the throne, and which further absolved all 
his vassals from allegiance to him. 

The War of the Three Henries 

The whole country was now in a state of anarchy, and 
fighting and rioting were universal. But it was not till the 
following year that the Eighth War of ReHgion definitely 
began — * the War of the Three Henries,' as it is commonly 
called, from the three leaders who took part in it — Henri III, 
Henri of Guise, and Henri of Navarre. The King's policy 
was, if possible, so to guide the course of events as to effect 
the 'destruction of both the opposed factions, and thus to 
ensure his own safety. But he had neither the strength of 
will nor the power of brain to achieve success in so delicate a 
game. At first fortune was against the Huguenots. Then 
Henri of Navarre inflicted a terrible defeat on the King's army 
under Joyeuse at Coutras (October 20, 1587). In the north, 
however, the Duke of Guise drove the German allies of the 
Protestants out of the country. This exploit gave him immense 
poptilarity among the masses of Paris ; he became the hero 
of the hour ; - and when shortly afterward the King entered 
his capital (December 23), he was received with the jeers and 
insults of the crowd. In his alarm he brought a large contingent 
of Swiss mercenaries to the suburbs and sent a peremptory 
message to the Duke of Guise forbidding him to come to 
Paris. Events now moved rapidly toward the closing act of the 
long drama. The League became openly disloyal. Its metro- 
politan branch had already formed a secret government for 
Paris, called * the Sixteen,' from the sixteen sections of the 
city represented in it. An active policy was pursued. Various 
attempts were made to seize the King's person, and, these 
284 





39- Catherine de Mh;dicis 



284 



THE WARS OF RELIGION 

having failed, the royal prohibition was set at defiance and 
the Duke of Guise was called in. He entered Paris amid 
scenes of wild popular enthusiasm. The King shut himself 
up in the I^ouvre, and most unwisely sent for his Swiss guards. 
The people of Paris took this as a threat and a challenge. The 
citizens flew to arms ; the tocsin sounded from the churches ; 
shops were shut ; chains, benches, carts, barrels, were hastily 
put to service for the defence of the streets, and the capital 
assumed the appearance of a city under siege. On that ' Day 
of Barricades ' — ^May 12, 1588 — the King learned to his humilia- 
tion who was the real master of the situation. It was only 
through the personal intervention of the Duke of Guise that 
the Swiss guard was saved from destruction and Henri himself 
from capture by the populace. In an interview with the Duke 
the following day the King was obliged to accede to all the 
demands of the Xeaguers. 

If the King needed further proof that the whole country 
was now against him, it was furnished by the States-General, 
which he had undertaken to convene, and which met at Blois 
in October. He had determined to denounce the lycague, and 
in fact went so far as to declare that he would no longer permit 
any armed association to exist within his realm. But he was 
forced to eat his words, and to confirm the appointment of the 
Duke of Guise as lyieutenant-General of the kingdom. 

This stirred his hatred of the Guises to fever-heat. He 
resolved to be rid of them at all costs. There was only one 
way, and he took it, while the States were still in session. 
Summoned to a council in the King's apartments, the Duke 
was assassinated by the royal body-guard (December 23). 
His brother, the Cardinal, shared his fate. Henri hastened 
to his mother in triumph with the news, and fatuously boasted 
that at length he could be King indeed. 

The Assassination of Henri III 

Hardly was the crime committed, however, before he dis- 
covered that he had made a fatal mistake. The report of the 
murder threw Paris into a fury of excitement. The churches 

285 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

rang with denunciations of the King ; the Sixteen strengthened 
their organization ; such members of the Parhament of Paris 
as still remained faithful to the monarchy were arrested ; the 
Sorbonne solemnly declared that the French people were 
freed from all allegiance to the throne. A provisional Govern- 
ment was set up, and the Duke of Mayenne, the only surviving 
brother of the Duke of Guise, was made lyieutenant-General. 
In the midst of all this excitement the death of Catherine 
de Medicis (January 5, 1589) was almost unnoticed. But it 
removed the wretched King's sole support. There was now 
nothing left for him but to throw himself into the arms of 
the King of Navarre. The two sovereigns met at Plessis-les 
Tours, and an agreement was concluded between them, Henri 
of Navarre promising to stand by the Crown and undertaking 
on his faith and honour never to deny to the Catholics the 
liberty of conscience which he claimed for himself. A basis 
thus being established for united action, the combined armies 
of the Royalists and the Huguenots pushed steadily across 
the country between the I^oire and the Seine, and on the 
evening of July 30, 1589, appeared, 40,000 strong, before 
the walls of Paris. The blockade began. The city went 
mad with excitement. Day and night processions marched 
through the streets. The frenzy of the preachers was as great 
and as little restrained as that of the populace. Priests made 
waxen images of the King and practised the rites of envoute- 
ment upon them before their altars. Bands of children went 
about bearing lighted candles, which they blew out with shrill 
cries of ** Dieu, eteignez ainsi la race des Valois ! " The 
doctrine of tyrannicide was openly preached from the pulpit 
and was defended in the schools. 

Meanwhile on the side of the invaders plans were laid for a 
general assault on the city on August 2. But before these plans 
could be carried out the doom of the King had been sealed. 
Among those in whom excitement had become delirium was 
a young Jacobin monk named Jacques Clement. The son of 
a peasant, he was marked by all the rude simplicity and gross 
superstition of his class. He had prayed and fasted, he had 
286 



THE HOUSE OF VALOIS 

Charles, Comte de Valois 

Son of Philippe III 

(1270-1325) 

Phiuppe VI 
(1293-1350 ; King of France 1328) 





JEAN II (' le Bon ') 
{c. 1319-1364) 




1 

ChawsS V ("le Sage') 
(1337-1380) 

1 




Philippe le Hardi 

{d. 1404) 
(Ancestor of the 


Chari^es VI 
(I368-I422) 

Chari^es VII 


1 
I^ouis, Due 

d' Orleans 

(d. 1407) 

1 


House of 
Burgundy) 


(I403-I46I) 

i 

IvOUIS XI 

(I423-I483) 

1 

Chari^es VIII 

(I470-I498) 


1 
Charles 

{d. 1465) 
1 

lyOUIS XII 
{I462-I5I5) 


Jean, Comte 

d'Angouleme 

(d. 1467) 

1 
Charles 

{d. 1496) 

1 
Francois I 

(1494-1547) 

Henri II 
(1519-1559) 

1 




Francois II Chari^es IX Henri III 
(1544-1560) (1550-1574) (1551-1589) 



287 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

seen visions and heard celestial voices, and he had become 
convinced that it was his sacred mission to free h^s country 
from the deteisted King. Provided with a counterfeit letter 
by way of introduction, he contrived to pass through the 
Royalist lines and to obtain access to Henri's camp at Saint- 
Cloud. In Henri's presence he declared that he had private 
information of the utmost importance to communicate to 
him. By command the royal guards withdrew. The monk 
then stepped forward and plunged a knife into Henri's abdomen. 
Hearing the King's cry, the guards rushed in and slew the 
assassin on the spot. That night the King of Navarre came 
to Saint-Cloud from his own headquarters at Meudon, and the 
dying monarch embraced him, gave him his blessing, recog- 
nized him as his successor,' and urged him to adopt the true 
faith. Early next morning he passed away, and thus the prayer 
of the Paris children was fulfilled. With Henri III the race of 
the Valois became extinct. 



288 



BOOK IV 

THE HOUSE OF BOURBON 

1589-1789 

CHAPTER I 
HENRI IV 

1589-1610 

THE news of the assassination of Henri III caused wild 
rejoicings in Paris, where cheering crowds paraded the 
streets in the glare of innumerable bonfires, and even 
the churches rang with praises of Jacques Clement, the blessed 
martyr. But while popular feeling thus discharged itself in 
noisy demonstrations, the leaders of the contending parties 
in the country now found themselves faced by the serious 
question of the succession to the throne. As the nearest male 
representative of the royal house Henri of Navarre was, in 
accordance with the Salic lyaw, the rightful King of France. 
But as a Protestant under ban of excommunication he was 
obnoxious to the mass of the nation, and for the moment it 
seemed in the last degree unlikely that he could ever make 
good his theoretical claim. On the other hand, the lycaguers 
were divided among themselves and confusion prevailed in 
their counsels. 

Henri's first step in assuming the royal title was to secure 
the support of the nobles, Catholic and Huguenot, who had 
followed his predecessor to Saint-Cloud. To this end he 
adopted a policy of general conciliation, solemnly undertaking 
to maintain the Catholic religion as the religion of the State 
and, as the technical phrase ran, to cause himself to " receive 
instruction" in it, and at the same time to preserve such 
freedom of worship as was already enjoyed by the Reformers. 
But though this declaration was accepted and countersigned 

T 289 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

by many of the chiefs of the royal army (August 4, 1589), it 
failed to give universal satisfaction. Its concessions displeased 
the extremists of both parties, and while several powerful 
Catholic nobles withdrew in dudgeon, some of the more stiff- 
necked Protestants declared their unwillingness to fight for a 
sovereign '' who promised to support idolatry." By such 
defections the army at Saint-Cloud was quickly reduced to 
some eight or ten thousand men, mainly foreigners, whose 
clamorous demands for their long arrears of pay Henri was 
too poor to meet. In the country at large the new King's 
position was equally precarious. His title was generally 
recognized only in the south. Elsewhere, the provinces and 
principal cities either sided with the I^eague or remained neutral. 
It needed a man of Henri's courage, determination, and self- 
confidence to stand firm against odds apparently so over- 
whelming. 

Henri's Struggle with the League 

Meanwhile the leaders of the Catholic party were forced to 
take definite action. To reject the claims of the heretic 
prince was not enough. An orthodox king must be set up 
in his place. The intrigues of Philip II, who was busily 
scheming to establish a Spanish dynasty in France, and the 
pretensions of the Duke of Savoy helped to some extent to 
close up the ranks of the lycaguers. But the difiiculty of 
finding an occupant for the throne who would be entirely 
acceptable to all the factions remained. Had the Duke of 
Mayenne, now the head of the I^eague, possessed the requisite 
qualities of daring and resolution, he might easily have assumed 
the crown. But Mayenne was not the man to take advantage 
even of such a golden opportunity. He preferred to temporize. 
He therefore caused the Cardinal of Bourbon to be proclaimed 
King of France under the title of Charles X (August 7, 1589), 
while by the same edict he appointed himself lyieutenant- 
General of the Crown and State. As the Cardinal, who had 
been a prisoner of the Huguenots since the assassination of 
the Duke of Guise, was now old and gouty, the real power of 
290 





40. Henri IV in 1556 



41. The Duke of Mayenne 




42. Henri IV and Marie dE 

MJgDICIS 




"<*-*■?,.{■ .'v.. 



43. The Duke of Sui,i,y 



290 



HENRI IV 

the Government was vested, as was intended, in Mayenne. 
It was generally understood that this arrangement was designed 
only to mark time. But from the point of view of the preten- 
sions of the Jiouse of Guise the proclamation of the Cardinal 
was a tactical mistake, since the legitimacy of the rival claims 
of the house of Bourbon was thereby formally acknowledged. 

For the moment, however, the situation was entirely in 
Mayenne's favour, and when Henri learned that the lycague 
had been strongly reinforced by fresh troops from Spain he 
saw that to linger at Saint-Cloud would be to court certain 
disaster. Accordingly he raised the siege of Paris, despatched 
two of his chief supporters — ^lyongueville into Picardy and 
d'Aumont into Champagne — in quest of money and recruits, 
and set out himself for Normandy at the head of an army 
of 7000 half-starved and discontented men. His principal 
object was now to reach the coast, in the hope of effecting 
a junction with the English auxiliaries promised by Queen 
Elizabeth. He paused in his march, however, to make a 
surprise attack upon Rouen ; but this failing, pushed on to 
Dieppe, which at once threw open its gates to him. So 
desperate was his condition — ^in his own words, he was a 
king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and 
a soldier without money — ^that he was glad thus to secure a 
point of vantage from which, if the worst came to the worst, 
he could make good his escape to England. But in the mean- 
time he took up a strong position on the heights round the 
village of Arques, four miles south-east of Dieppe, and there 
awaited the arrival of Mayenne, who had started in pursuit 
with a force of 25,000, augmented on the way to 33,000 men. 
Fully convinced that his immense superiority in numbers 
gave him the certainty of an easy victory, the Duke had 
promised the people of Paris either to bring Henri back bound 
hand and foot or to drive him into the sea. But he soon 
discovered to his cost that it was one thing to promise and 
another to perform. For nearly three weeks he did his utmost, 
now by force and now by treachery, to dislodge his obstinate 
foe. But Henri's little army repelled every attack ; and 

291 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

when news reached the besiegers that several thousand BngHsh 
soldiers, well supplied with ammunition and provisions, had 
joined the King's forces, and that lyongueville and d'Aumont 
were also approaching with further help, Mayenne abandoned 
his efforts and retired toward the Somme (September i8, 

1589)- 

This success was a great encouragement to Henri and put 
new heart into his men, while the arrival next day in the 
port of Dieppe of 4000 more English soldiers and 1000 Scots 
was the signal for a general outburst of enthusiasm in the 
royal camp. Finding that he had now some 25,000 men at 
his disposal, the King, with characteristic audacity, resolved 
on a dash to Paris, calculating upon the moral effect which 
this would have upon his enemies. Paris was, indeed, com- 
pletely taken by surprise when on the night of October 31- 
November i, under cover of a thick fog, hundreds of Huguenots, 
with loud cries of " Saint Bartholomew ! Saint Bartholomew ! " 
poured into the suburbs on the left bank of the Seine. Three 
days of unrestrained pillage enabled the raiders to make up 
in booty what they still wanted in pay. Then the return of 
Mayenne obliged Henri to renounce all further attempt on 
the capital. He therefore withdrew his troops and fell back 
upon Tours, the provisional seat of his Government, which he 
entered by torchlight on the night of November 22, amid 
enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty on the part of the 
inhabitants. On his march south he had captured ]6tampes 
and Vendome. 

Nothing succeeds like success. The news of Henri's victories 
already began to affect neutral opinion throughout the country, 
and even more markedly the attitude of foreign nations toward 
him. England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark had 
already recognized him ; first among the Catholic states to 
do so, Venice now followed suit. Even the Pope, notwith- 
standing the pressure brought to bear upon him by the I^eague 
and Philip of Spain, began to waver in his antagonism. At 
the same time the King's position was further strengthened 
by the growing dissensions of his enemies. The stop-gap policy 
292 



HENRI IV 

adopted in the proclamation of the Cardinal of Bourbon was 
already proving very unsatisfactory. On many sides Charles X 
was regarded as merely a phantom monarch. The I^eague 
was torn by the plots and counter-plots of rival factions. 
Mayenne, though he now too late began to realize that he had 
missed his chance, was still nursing his private ambitions. 
Philip II openly asserted the rights of his daughter, as niece 
of the late King. The Dukes of Lorraine and Savoy also 
put forth their claims, the one on behalf of his son, who was 
a grandson of Henri II, the other on his own account as 
grandson of Fran9ois I. The Dukes of Mercoeur, Nemours, 
Nevers, and Aumale, each in his own territorial interest, 
demanded the dismemberment of the kingdom ; while the 
turbulent Council of Sixteen sought to extend the interregnum, 
which had given them their power, with a view to the ultimate 
establishment of a kind of republic, the destinies of which 
of course were to be in their hands. In these circumstances 
Paris was a hotbed of ferment and intrigue, the only ground 
of understanding among the contending parties, amid all their 
internal jealousies, being their common hatred of the heretic of 
Navarre. 

The Battle of Ivry 

Determined at all costs to keep the realm together and to 
prevent the crown of France from passing under foreign con- 
trol, Mayenne maintained a firm front against the enormous 
difficulties of his position. He took a bold line in suppressing 
the Council of Sixteen, and announced his determination to 
convoke the States-General, that the nation might itself 
decide as to the disposition of the crown. His immediate 
anxiety, however, was to recover the military prestige which 
he had lost at Arques, for this was essential to the continuance 
of his power in the country. The situation, too, called for 
decisive action. Having established a ministry at Tours and 
put his dilapidated finances on a somewhat sounder footing, 
Henri had once more taken the field. At first he met with 
almost unbroken success, Le Mans, Alen9on, Falaise, I^isieux, 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and Bayeiix quickly surrendering to him (November 1589- 
January 1590). But his triumphant career in Normandy was 
checked by Mayenne's counter-stroke — ^the capture of Pontoise 
and the investment of Meulan. With the object of drawing 
off at least a portion of the forces of the lycague, Henri in turn 
laid siege to Dreux. Mayenne at once marched to the relief 
of the city. Upon this Henri raised the siege in order to 
deploy his army on the plain of Saint-Andre, near the village 
of Ivry, sixteen miles from Dreux. Here on March 14, after 
two hours of furious fighting, the lycaguers suffered a defeat 
crushing almost to annihilation. Once more, as at Arques, 
the numerical odds were greatly in favour of Mayenne, who 
had some 17,000 men against Henri's 10,000, and the brilliancy 
of the Royalist victory was -therefore the more apparent. One 
incident in particular in the great battle is famiHar to every 
Etiglish reader through Macaulay's stirring ballad. Before 
hostilities began, Henri, mounted on his fine bay horse, 
harangued his soldiers. " My companions,'' he cried, " I am 
resolved to die or conquer with you. If you lose sight of the 
standards and colours, keep my white plumes always in view, 
for there you will find the road to victory and glory." And 
he was as good as his word, for from first to last he was himself 
in the very thick of the fray. 

The victory of Ivry, and the fall of Mantes, which imme- 
diately followed, opened the road to Paris. Had Henri thrown 
himself upon the capital while the panic caused by the news 
of Mayenne's rout was still at its height, it seems probable 
that the inhabitants would have been glad to come to terms 
with him. He himself, it would appear, was anxious to make 
the attempt, but was dissuaded by his military advisers, who. 
Catholic and Protestant aHke, feared that his too rapid triumph 
might be prejudicial to their own interests by placing him 
once and for all beyond the necessity of their help. As it was, 
therefore, he lingered in Mantes to readjust his finances and 
establish his Council of State, and this delay gave his enemies 
time to recover from their shock. Even when at length he 
renewed his campaign he spent several weeks in reducing and 
294 



HENRI IV 

occupying various towns of strategical importance on the 
way. It was thus early May before the royal army was 
encamped outside the capital and the investment formally 
begun. 

The Siege of Paris 

It was not Henri's policy to endeavour, at least for the 
moment, to carry Paris by storm. It is said, indeed, that he 
dreaded the excesses of his Huguenot followers, who were 
openly determined to avenge St Bartholomew.^ What had 
happened in the suburbs a short time before may have made 
him alive to this danger. His plan was therefore to starve 
the city into submission. He now, indeed, seemed to hold it 
in an iron grip, for he had strong garrisons in the neighbouring 
towns, while the main roads and all the bridges of the Marne, 
the Yonne, the Seine, and the Oise were in his hands. The 
blockade was in fact practically complete. 

His chances of success were, moreover, increased by the 
fact that Paris was but ill prepared for a long siege, being 
poorly supplied with both provisions and ammunition. But 
the temper of the people had been stiffened by the disaster 
which had at first filled them with consternation. Inspired 
by religious enthusiasm and the fiercest hatred of the heretic 
King, they were willing to face every peril and to endure 
every privation rather than yield. The demonstrations of 
the fanatical clergy and of the Council of Sixteen, which 
despite Mayenne's decree was still alive and active, became 
more violent than ever. The grand procession of the League, 
on May 14, when priests, monks, and students, 1300 strong, 
marched in battle order over the bridge of Notre-Dame, inten- 
sified the popular feeling. Thirty thousand citizens enrolled 
themselves among the regular troops. The very church-bells 
were melted down for cannon. Summary vengeance was 
wreaked by the populace on a few politiques here and there 
who ventured, however timidly, to suggest pacifist counsels. 
The Sprbonne, at the instigation of Cajetano, the papal legate, 
1 See Hardouin de P^r^fixe, Hisfoire du Roi Henri le Grand, p. 134. 

29s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

issued an edict requiring all true Catholics to resist Henri to 
the bitter end, declaring that those who should advocate the 
overture of negotiations with him would thereby incur the 
guilt of mortal sin, and promising to such as died in the good 
cause the martyr's crown. 

Hardly had the siege begun when news reached the city 
of the death of the Cardinal of Bourbon. This event gave 
the rival pretenders to supreme power a fresh opportunity to 
press their claims. But the general agitation was so great 
that the leaders of the I^eague were far more concerned about 
their immediate danger from the foe without their walls than 
about what appeared to them the far remoter problem of the 
succession to the throne. Philip II exhorted Mayenne to 
proceed at once to the proclamation of a new sovereign, and 
plainly intimated that the young Duke of Guise would be 
acceptable to him. But Mayenne in reply announced his 
intention to defer this till the coming meeting of the States- 
Ge^neral, and for the present to continue to exercise his functions 
as lyieutenant of the realm. In the meantime he was strain- 
ing every nerve to secure succour from the Catholic Powers, 
lycaving the government of Paris to his brother, the young 
Duke of Nemours, he hastened to Conde to urge upon the 
Duke of Parma, the Spanish Governor of the lyow Countries, 
the instant despatch of the reinforcements which had been 
promised by Spain. 

The first two months of the siege were marked by many 
sorties and bloody encounters in the outlying suburbs, which 
resulted here and there in slight gains for the lycaguers. But 
nothing could be done to break the blockade ; the slow agony 
of the city continued, and with every passing week the condi- 
tion of its inhabitants grew more and more distressing. Strict 
orders were issued regulating the sale of provisions, and 
arrangements made for the public relief of the very poor. 
But the dearth steadily increased, and before long crowds of 
haggard and half-frantic people daily besieged the Hotel de 
Ville and paraded the streets with hoarse cries of " Give us 
bread ! Money is of no use to us. Give us bread ! " The 
296 



HENRI IV 

mortality became frightful ; hundreds died of starvation in 
the hospitals and the streets ; hundreds more contracted 
horrible diseases from vile stuff on which they fed. Inquisition 
made by command of the Duke of Nemours into the resources 
of the monastic houses brought to light large secret stores of 
provisions, which were at once converted to public use. But 
the alleviation thus obtained was only temporary, and the 
city's state was soon more grievous than before. By the 
middle of July all the cattle, horses, and mules had been slain ; 
dogs, cats, even rats and mice, were now used for food. '' I 
have seen with my own eyes," writes an Italian in the suite 
of the papal legate, '' many wretches devouring raw dog's 
flesh and the entrails of beasts which had been flung into the 
gutter. On one occasion I witnessed the furious combat of 
a man with a savage dog, which he had attacked to eat. The 
dog threw down the man, who was famishing, and began to 
tear and eat his flesh, when the shouts and blows of other 
miserable wretches drove the brute from his prey." ^ Small 
loaves were made of a paste composed of human bones ground 
down and mixed with rancid oil, and thousands perished of 
this loathsome preparation. ^ The soldiers began to steal 
children, and in one case it is recorded that a woman of rank 
fed on the salted bodies of her own offspring.^ The sanitary 
state of the city was appalling, and pestilence stalked on the 
heels of famine. Altogether, it is computed, the death-roll 
of the first three months of the siege reached the gigantic 
total of 100,000. And still the populace, their hatred of the 
Huguenot deepened by their very sufferings, held out with grim 
determination, inspired by the enthusiasm of their fanatical 
priests, and encouraged by reiterated promises of coming relief 
from Spain. 

On the night of July 23, however, a few private citizens, 
goaded to desperation, threw themselves from the walls, and 
contrived to make their way to Saint-Cloud, where they laid 
their piteous case before the King in person. Henri was much 

* Pigafetta, Assedio di Parigi, 1591. 

8 Cp. Voltaire, La Henriade, Chant X. » Ibid. 

297 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

moved, and gave permission for 3000 persons of the non- 
combatant class — women, children, students, peasants, and 
priests — to leave the city. But at the same time he resolved 
to bring matters to a head by a general attack, and this four 
days later was delivered with such effect that after two hours' 
fighting all the important suburbs from Saint-Martin on the 
west side to Saint- Victor on the east were in his hands. This 
success further increased the rigour of the blockade, and the 
despair of the inhabitants now became so great that, notwith- 
standing the persistent clamour of the implacable demagogues 
and the prohibitory decree of the Sorbonne, it was finally 
decided to send a deputation to Henri in the interests of peace. 
On August 5 the delegates selected — the Bishop of Paris 
and the Archbishop of Lyon — ^were received in audience by 
the King. Their tone, however, was so unconciliatory that 
nothing came of the interview. Henri's ultimatum was, in 
effect, an emphatic refusal to recognize either Mayenne or the 
King of Spain in the negotiations, and a demand for the 
capitulation of the city within a week ; though he showed his 
sympathetic spirit by permitting a further exodus of bouches 
inutiles, an act of clemency for which he was well rated by 
Queen Elizabeth. 

The local situation had thus far made Philip II unwilling 
to withdraw any of his forces from the lyow Countries, but 
Paris was now reduced to such an extremity that there was 
not a moment more to lose. The Duke of Parma was therefore 
ordered to hasten at once to the assistance of Mayenne, whom 
he joined at Meaux on August 23. His opportune arrival, 
which took Henri by surprise, instantly put a new complexion 
on affairs. The Duke's skilful tactics compelled Henri to 
raise the siege of Paris (August 30) in order to give battle to 
the enemy. The Duke, moreover, captured I^agny and pro- 
ceeded to pour an abundance of provisions into the city by 
way of the Marne, of which he had thus gained control. In 
this way Paris was relieved, and Henri's hopes, after four 
months of expectation, rudely dashed to the ground. 
^The King's prospects were now, indeed, as black as they 
298 



W&iH. 




00 



H 

w 
o 

> 






HENRI IV 

had been in the days before Ivry, and his difficulties were 
greatly increased by a change in the occupation of the papal 
chair. Sixtus V, whose hatred and distrust of Philip II had 
led him to adopt a half sympathetic attitude toward the heretic 
of Navarre, died in August 1590. His successor, Gregory XIV, 
was entirely devoted to the I^eague and to Spain. It was 
useless, therefore, for Henri to expect any compromise with 
Rome. But even more urgent were the troubles which faced 
him at home. Disaffection continued to grow apace in his 
camp, his Catholic adherents complaining of the long-deferred 
fulfilment of his undertaking to '' receive instruction," the 
Huguenots openly grumbling that thus far they had gained 
so little by having a king of their own faith. This disaffection 
Henri sought to allay by further promises and edicts of a con- 
ciliatory character. But all such efforts had little influence, 
especially upon those among the more powerful of his nominal 
supporters, like the selfish and unscrupulous Marshal Biron, 
who were really playing for their own hand. Amid all these 
perplexities Henri saw that his only hope of salvation lay in 
vigorous action. He determined to utilize the reinforcements 
which he had now received from England, the lyow Countries, 
and Germany in a fresh and energetic campaign. 

All hope of taking the capital, now garrisoned by Spanish 
troops, had to be abandoned. But as its possession was 
essential to his success, his plan was to use the method of the 
long arm and cut off its communications with Normandy. 
He began by seizing ** the granary of Paris," Chartres (April 10, 
1591), the capture of which was largely due to "the valour 
and address " of Admiral Coligny's young son, Chatillon.^ 
Then, after spending three months in making the necessary 
preparations, he marched with 40,000 men, scarcely a quarter 
of whom were French, upon Rouen, a great stronghold of the 
lycague and a point of the utmost importance in his designs, 
since its occupation would have made him master of all North- 

^ Sully, Mimoires (1814), t. i, p. 293. Chatillon had all the fine qualities 
of his father, and his death before the year was out was a great loss to Henri 
and the Huguenot party, 

299 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

western France (November 1591). But Parma's arrival com- 
pelled him to abandon his project (February 1592) and fall 
back upon the Pays-de-Caux. In the fighting which ensued 
the advantage, in part owing to the calculated inactivity 
of Biron,, was mainly with the Leaguers. But the death of 
Parma (December 3) of a wound which he had received months 
before at Caudebec removed by far the most formidable of 
Henri's military antagonists. 

While these events were in progress misery and confusion 
prevailed in Paris, which the capture of Chartres had once 
more brought to the verge of starvation. The popular mind 
was still greatly inflamed by the extremists among the clergy, 
who openly preached assassination and clamoured for a massacre 
of the politiques ; but the general spirit had been so broken 
by privation and suffering that there was less actual violence 
t^an might have been expected. The Sixteen, in the meantime, 
their power immensely increased by Mayenne's reverses, were 
seeking by every means to make themselves supreme in the 
State, and to that end were engaged in secret negotiations with 
Spain. At this juncture the young Duke of Guise contrived 
to escape from the citadel of Tours and hastened to Paris, 
where as the son of the * martyred ' Duke he at once became 
the idol of the Catholic mob. He was seized upon by the 
Sixteen, who saw in his possible marriage with Philip's daughter, 
the Infanta, the promise of their triumph over the party of 
Mayenne. Mayenne was alive to the danger, yet he could 
not bring himself to accept the patriotic suggestion of some 
of his advisers that in the interests of the country he should 
checkmate Spanish ambitions by sacrificing personal considera- 
tions and coming to an understanding with Henri of Navarre. 
But he showed himself ready none the less to deal a decisive 
blow at the Sixteen. In November 1591 Brisson (the president 
of the Parliament) and two other magistrates of high standing 
were summarily executed by order of the Council. The terror- 
stricken Parisians thereupon sent message after message to 
the Duke at I^aon, urging him to return instantly and save 
them all from destruction, and on his arrival he caused four 
300 



HENRI IV 

of the most prominent members of the Sixteen to be seized 
and beheaded. The flight of several others, almost equally 
notorious for their turbulence, reduced the Council to impo- 
tence, and Mayenne completed its ruin by filling the vacant 
municipal offices with avowed politiques (February 1592). 
By this unexpected firmness he acquired for the moment an 
undisputed ascendancy in the city. Distrusted by all factions 
alike, however, he was unable to turn his position to account. 
By strengthening the hands of the politiques against the zealots 
he had in fact cut the ground from beneath his own feet. 

Unfortunately, on his side, Henri was no less powerless to 
take advantage of the dissensions of his enemies. He had 
failed to make himself master either of Paris or of Rouen ; 
his treasury was empty ; his mercenaries would no longer 
fight without their pay ; discontent was rife among the rank 
and file of his French followers ; the defection of his nobles 
continued. Things were thus at a deadlock. And still through- 
out the country the war dragged on, bringing desolation and 
untold misery in its train. 

At length, however, the influence of the politiques and of 
the more moderate among the I^eaguers themselves began to 
make itself felt. Alarmed by the talk of compromise which 
now became current, Mayenne resolved to redeem his promise 
of summoning an assembly of the nation. But the States- 
General which met in Paris in January 1593 were entirely 
unrepresentative ; they mustered 128 members only, mainly 
of the Third Estate, and these for the most part were creatures 
either of Mayenne or of Spain. Philip, who was now convinced 
that he held the fate of France in the hollow of his hand, 
despatched an envoy-extraordinary to Paris to make known 
his plans for the French people. But national feeling and the 
counter-influence of Mayenne were stronger than he had 
anticipated, and his successive proposals — first, to place the 
Infanta on the throne ; then to elect the Archduke Ernest, 
who had become the Infanta's husband ; and finally to accept 
the Duke of Guise, to whom, the foregoing arrangements failing, 
he was willing to give his second daughter in marriage — ^were 

301 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

one by one rejected. Several months were consumed in these 
futile discussions. One decision only of real importance was 
reached, and this was in the teeth of the opposition of the 
extremists. It was agreed that envoys should be sent to 
Henri to consider with him " the means of securing peace and 
of maintaining the Catholic religion." The proposed conference 
met at Suresnes in May. On June 28 the Parliament of Paris 
declared itself on the patriotic side by issuing a solemn remon- 
strance, addressed to the lyieutenant-General, who himself sup- 
ported it, against the abrogation of the Salic I^aw demanded 
by Philip and the establishment of any foreign prince or princess 
on the French throne. This remonstrance produced a profound 
effect throughout the country ; the States made it a pretext 
to adjourn their debates .without coming to any decision 
regarding the succession ; the intrigues of the Spanish party 
were frustrated ; and the chances of the Duke of Guise, now 
Henri's only rival, were seriously diminished. 

Henri's Conversion to Catholicism 

All this was in Henri's favour. Yet for one outstanding 
reason his success seemed as remote as ever : the weakness of 
his position made it impossible for him to impose his own 
terms upon the country and his religion continued to present 
an insurmountable bar. Three years had now elapsed since 
the battle of Ivry, and one thing remained clear : that, however 
weary they might be of war, the mass of the French people 
would never accept a heretic king. Such were the circum- 
stances in which Henri took *' the perilous leap " (as he himself 
called it) which he had long been meditating, and which had 
been repeatedly urged upon him by his most devoted and 
sagacious advisers. He publicly announced his conversion 
to the Catholic faith. On Sunday, July 25, with a large escort 
of nobles and guards, he repaired to the church of Saint-Denis 
through crowds of joyous people, who saw in the event the 
certain augury of peace. At the church, at the door of which 
he had first to knock, he was received by the Archbishop of 
Bourges, seven bishops, and a numerous retinue of clergy. 
302 



HENRI IV 

" Who are you ? " asked the Archbishop. '' The King," was 
Henri's reply. *' What is your request ? " And Henri 
answered : " To be received into the pale of the Catholic, 
Apostolic, and Roman Church." *' Do you desire it ? " in- 
quired the prelate. " Yes, I do desire it," responded the 
King. Then, kneeling before the Archbishop, he continued, 
at the same time handing him his signed confession of faith : 
" I protest and swear in the presence of Almighty God to live 
and die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, to 
protect and defend it against all its enemies at the peril of 
my Ijfe and blood, renouncing all heresies contrary to the 
same.*' The Archbishop thereupon gave him provisional 
absolution, and the ceremony was completed by a Te Deum, 
confession, and High Mass.^ 

Henri's apostasy has naturally been the subject of long and 
heated controversy, for it raises questions concerning which 
much may be said on one and the other side. That his conver- 
sion was at bottom a matter of real intellectual conviction 
cannot, I think, be maintained. It seems certain, on the 
contrary, that he continued to regard his old Calvinistic faith 
as sound, and that many of the dogmas of the Catholic Church 
were regarded by him as fooleries (badineries) ; though Sully 
stoutly urges in his defence that nothing " could have prevailed 
upon him to embrace a religion which he inwardly despised 
or even doubted of." There was apparently, however, little 
depth to his religious feelings ; he was not the kind of man 
to concern himself much about dogma, and held, indeed, that 
its importance was greatly exaggerated by the theologians ; 
and while it evidently cost him something to break with the 
associations of his early life, he was of a light and debonair 
nature, and his emotions, though strong for the time, quickly 
evaporated. We may take it, therefore, that his action was 
dictated entirely by considerations of political expediency ; 
that what he did he did, as he himself declared, not with an 
eye to his own personal benefit, but for the good of his people, 

^ For a full account of this ceremony see Palma Cayet, Chronologic novennaire, 
lyivre V ; Pierre Matthieu, Histoire de Henri IV, t. i. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and in the hope, at a crisis when other hope there seemed to 
be none, of thereby bringing peace and prosperity back to 
his country, torn and prostrated by forty years of civil war. 
On this ground he has been greatly praised for his patriotism 
and fine statesmanship. Even if his change of religion was 
superficial only, even if it involved the sacrifice of his private 
beliefs, still, it has been urged, history shows that his conduct 
was completely vindicated by results. On the other hand, 
regarding his apostasy from the point of view of policy only, 
we have still to recognize the justice of the principle set forth 
in Queen Elizabeth's reproof : " It is a perilous thing to do 
evil that good may come." However excellent may have 
been the King's intention, the question will therefore intrude 
as to whether he is ultimately to be acquitted on the charge 
of dishonour in seeking even public welfare at the cost of 
personal integrity. Yet, considering the circumstances, it is 
hard to condemn him. What, it may be asked, would have 
happened to France if he had acted otherwise than as he did ? 
In fairness to him we must look at the problem as one not 
of abstract theory, but of practical necessity. It is a mere 
assumption of the moralists that every ethical question can 
be reduced to terms of absolute right and wrong, and judgment 
pronounced accordingly. There are countless cases in which 
a final balance can never be struck, and this of Henri's accept- 
ance of Catholicism is one of them. 

On one point at least he deserves the greatest credit. At 
the time of his conversion he promised his Huguenot followers 
that he would still be their friend and the protector of the 
faith which he had abjured. This promise, as we shall see, 
he kept. 

The news of his submission to the Catholic Church gave 
immense satisfaction to the moderate men of all parties, for 
whom it meant peace and the unification of the country. 
The clerical irreconcilables, it is true, did their utmost to 
persuade the Parisians that his so-called conversion was merely 
an act of hypocrisy, and continued to hurl their invectives 
against him as heretic and pretender. An attempt on his life 

304 



HENRI IV 

by the dagger of an assassin showed the animus of the dis- 
appointed Spanish faction. At the same time many of the 
Protestants murmured at what they regarded as their leader's 
betrayal of their cause. But the national power of the lycague 
was now broken, and popular feeling throughout the provinces 
began to run strongly in Henri's favour. Before the end of 
the year several important towns, including Meaux, Orleans, 
and Bourges, had yielded to him. 

Henri enters Paris 

Henri's next step was to confirm his title by the ceremony 
of coronation, which, since Reims was still in the hands of the 
lycague, was performed in the cathedral of Chartres, on Feb- 
ruary 27, 1594. Alive to the certain effect of this on public 
opinion, Mayenne in his own defence revived the Council of 
Sixteen and brought fresh Spanish troops into the capital. 
But Brissac, the Governor, bribed by money and the promise 
of a marshal's baton, threw open the gates, and on March 21 
Henri entered the city with an escort of between 4000 and 
5000 men. His action was a bold one, for his enemies within 
the walls were strong and their desperate plight had made 
them reckless. He knew well, therefore, as he passed through 
the narrow, crowded streets, that he went with his life in 
his hands. But the surprise of the people soon changed into 
enthusiasm, and by the time he reached Notre-Dame the city 
rang with shouts of '' Vive le roi ! " One last attempt made 
by the Sixteen to rally their forces failed, and the leaders of 
the Spanish garrison were glad to accept the King's offer that 
they should be allowed to march out of Paris with the honours 
of war. It is said that the King watched their retirement from 
a window over the gate of Saint-Denis, and that he courteously 
returned the salute of the officers with the words : *' Remember 
me to your master. Go ! I permit it ; but return no more." ^ 

The submission of Paris was quickly followed by that of 
Rouen, which was another severe blow at the fast-waning power 
of the lycague. For the moment Mayenne and the Spanish 
1 Hardouin de P^r^fixe, op. cit., pp. 184, 185. 

u 305 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

faction were still strong in the north and in Champagne and 
Ivanguedoc. But I^aon capitulated in August, and Amiens 
and other towns in Picardy a little later, and presently the 
Duke of Guise and the Duke of lyorraine were bought over 
to the King's side. Among the great nobles Mayenne and 
Mercoeur alone persisted in their opposition, and this they did 
in the hope of converting their governments — Burgundy and 
Brittany — into independent principalities. 

In thus reducing the realm piecemeal, Henri's policy was to 
purchase the loyalty of the seigneurs of the I^eague by immense 
bribes of money and offices. He also acted in the spirit of 
pacification ; his desire being, as he himself said, '' to forget 
everything," he treated even the most inveterate of his former 
enemies with the greatest • clemency. The immediate result 
was satisfactory, for foes were turned into friends, and one 
of^the principal obstacles to the restoration of peace was thus 
removed. Yet, as subsequent events proved, his measures 
were not altogether well advised. They led the nobility, in 
whom much of the old feudal temper still survived, to regard 
rebellion as a game which, skilfully played, might be made 
to pay. 

One thing more was needed to make Henri's position secure 
— absolution from the Pope. This had been delayed by the 
opposition of Spain. But in September 1595 it was finally 
obtained from Clement VIII, and Henri's title was thus 
completely legitimatized. This was the signal for the surrender 
of Mayenne, who in exchange for his submission was confirmed 
in the government of Burgundy and appeased with a gift of 
35,000 crowns. 

The lycague was now crushed and Henri had only one 
enemy left — Philip II, against whom he had formally declared 
war nine months before (January 1595). The struggle lasted 
three years, its chief events being the battle of Fontaine- 
Frangaise, near Dijon (1595), in which Henri exhibited all his 
old reckless valour, and the siege and capture of Amiens 
(March-November 1597). But Philip was now dying by inches 
of a loathsome disease ; he had been badly beaten by Kng- 
306 



HENRI IV 

land ; the heroic resistance of the Netherlands had further 
paralysed his ambitions ; and, to complete his discomfiture, 
his domestic finances were in a state of hopeless confusion. 
Realizing that it was impossible for him to cope any longer 
with the reviving power of a united France, he was therefore 
anxious for peace, and the war was closed by the Treaty of 
Vervins, which was based on that of Cateau-Cambresis forty 
years before, and was signed (May 2, 1598) only four months 
before his death. The failure of Spain was accompanied by 
the submission of Mercoeur, the last of the great nobles to 
hold out against the King. The terms arranged were highly 
favourable to the obstinate Duke ; he received an indemnity 
of four million crowns and the promise of the marriage of his 
little heiress to the King's four-year-old natural son, the Duke 
of Vend6me. 

The Edict of Nantes 

By far the most important event of this momentous year, 
however, was the proclamation on April 13 of the famous 
Edict of Nantes. This epoch-making document contained 
Henri's formal announcement of his policy of religious tolera- 
tion. Its provisions ensured the practical equality of Protes- 
tants and Catholics before the law. Certain restrictions as 
to the towns in which Protestant worship was permitted were 
still maintained, and the payment of tithes in support of the 
established religion was made compulsory. But the Huguenots 
now obtained full recognition of their claims of citizenship. 
The37^ were declared admissible to all public ofiices ; the benefits 
of all colleges, schools, and hospitals were extended to them ; 
they were empowered to found schools of their own and to set 
up their printing-presses in all the towns in which their worship 
was sanctioned. Their ministers were authorized to perform 
marriages and were relieved of all obligations for services incon- 
sistent with their sacred calling. Within limits, their right of 
assembly was also acknowledged. 

The significance of the Edict of Nantes can be appreciated 
only when we remember the condition of the Catholics at this 

307 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

time and for many years afterward in Protestant England. 
Historically it is of the utmost importance because it officially 
introduced an entirely new principle into the practice of 
government — ^the modern principle of toleration. More than 
any other act of his life it gives Henri his title to the admiration 
of posterity. It proves him to have been, in religious matters 
at any rate, by far the most enlightened ruler of his age. 

Naturally enough the Catholic clergy regarded such an 
edict as a piece of sacrilege. For more than a year the Parlia- 
ment of Paris refused to register it. Nor were the extreme 
Calvinists completely satisfied. But Henri was determined 
that its provisions should be enforced as part of the law of 
the land, and in this he had the support of the more moderate 
men of all parties. 

Reorganization : The Duke of Sully 

The establishment of internal peace was, however, only 
the* beginning of Henri's work of constructive statesmanship. 
He next addressed himself to the gigantic task of reconstituting 
the monarchy, of|bringing|order out of the chaos produced by 
forty years of civil war, and of restoring prosperity to the 
exhausted realm. 

The state of France was indeed deplorable. According to 
a contemporary estimate, during the preceding eighteen years 
800,000 persons had perished by war or massacre, nine cities 
and 250 villages had been razed to the ground and 128,000 
houses destroyed. Many of the most fertile parts of the 
country had been wasted or abandoned. Communications 
were precarious, and in places even the main roads had ceased 
to exist. Agriculture was utterly paralysed. Commerce and 
industry were at a standstill. Food was dear, work scarce, 
jobbery and corruption were universal, and destitution and 
misery were the common lot of the masses of the people. As 
a result of the long-continued anarchy life itself was insecure 
and crimes of violence were things of daily occurrence. That 
the King's government might be made real and effective both 
wisdom and courage were required. 

308 



HENRI IV 

In his work of reorganization Henri was fortunate enough 
to command the services of several faithful and sagacious 
counsellors, the most important of whom was a man whose 
name will always be closely associated with his own, the 
Protestant -Duke of Sully. Maximilien de Bethune, Baron of 
Rosny, and later Duke of Sully, was born in 1560. He early 
attached himself to Henri's person, narrowly escaped death 
in the massacre of St Bartholomew, accompanied Henri in his 
flight from Paris, and during the King's years of adventure 
and .struggle proved himself a brave soldier, a shrewd adviser, 
and a loyal friend. Keenly appreciative of his devotion and 
abilities, Henri made him in 1594 a member of his Council of 
State, and from 1597 onward he was virtually — ^though not 
till 1601 nominally — ^the Minister of Finance. In that capacity 
he fully justified the confidence which Henri reposed in him. 
He was not, it is generally conceded, a financial genius ; there 
was nothing creative about his policy ; in some important 
respects he was shortsighted and narrow-minded. But he 
was certainly a great administrator and a master in the art of 
finding immediate remedies for immediate ills ; his energy 
and courage were alike indomitable ; and even his harsh 
and stubborn temper, which made him generally unpopular, 
was of great help to him in carrying out his schemes in the 
teeth of the opposition of those who were interested in the 
abuses which he destroyed. 

Among these abuses the most intolerable were those entailed 
by the existing vicious system of taxation. The taxes were 
farmed out ; no proper supervision was exercised over the 
beneficiaries ; pillage and malversation were universal, and 
favoured individuals fattened at public expense. The conse- 
quence was that though the people paid annually more than 
200,000 millions of livres, less than 50,000 millions actually 
reached the Treasury. Sully suppressed these evils and brought 
taxation under the central control of the Ministry. The revenue 
was thus doubled without any additional charge on the country. 
He also readjusted in important ways the incidence of taxa- 
tion, forcing many of the wealthy, who on various pretexts had 

309 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

shirked responsibility, to bear their share of the national burden, 
and thereby relieving the poorer classes. Without going into 
further details we may simply say that before the end of 
Henri's reign he had put the finances of the realm in order, 
redeemed a considerable portion of the public debt, and reduced 
taxation, while at the same time he had so increased the revenue 
that he had succeeded in amassing a handsome surplus even 
after devoting large sums to arsenals, fortifications, and the 
equipment of the fleet. 

Sully regarded agriculture as the one great source of national 
wealth, and gave much attention to its improvement throughout 
the country. On the other hand— and here we touch one of 
his limitations — he distrusted commerce and manufacture. In 
this respect, however, Henri was in advance of his minister, 
and hence a great deal was done during the latter part of his 
r^ign to encourage domestic industry and trade with foreign 
countries. Henri even nourished colonial ambitions. In 1608 
Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec and laid the foundations 
of a New France beyond the sea. 

Sully, though far from sympathizing with his master's com- 
mercial views, agreed with him as to the need of opening 
up the country and developing its communications. Here he 
did much good work as Grand Voyer, or Controller of the 
Ports and Highways of France. Under his superintendence 
old roads were put into proper condition, new roads were laid 
out, the navigation of rivers was improved, and a great system 
of waterwa^^s was planned, of which a beginning was made 
with the Can'al of Briare, connecting the Loire with the Seine. 

France recovered rapidly under Henri's beneficent rule, and 
increasing prosperity made him widely popular. None the 
less the flames of faction were by no means quite stamped out. 
There were malcontents among the clergy who continued to 
denounce him ; the pulpit was seconded by the printing-press ; 
and the spirit of unrest was kept alive by the intrigues of 
Spain. Henri's greatest danger lay, however, in the insubor- 
dination of some of the nobility, whose feudal pretensions to 
independence had been encouraged by civil war, and who now 
310 



HENRI IV 

saw their ambitions thwarted by the steady growth of the 
royal power. Several conspiracies resulted, the most serious 
of which was that in which the Duke of Biron, the son of Henri's 
former marshal, made common cause with Savoy and Spain. 
Biron, though loaded with favours, had already once before 
been guilty of treason, but had then been pardoned. This 
time he met a traitor's death on the scaffold (July 31, 1602). 

Two years before this Henri had solved a problem which 
for some time had given great concern both to him and to 
the country. This was the question of the succession to the 
throne. His marriage with the profligate IVlarguerite of Valois 
had been childless, and husband and wife had long lived apart. 
A legitimate son (his bastard children by his various mis- 
tresses did not, of course, count) was necessary to assure his 
line and the peace of France after his death. To this end, 
with Marguerite's entire consent, he induced the Pope to annul 
his marriage ; after which, on December 9, 1600, he took as 
his second wife the Pope's niece, Maria de' Medici.^ The union 
was not a happ^^ one, but it achieved its political purpose. 
Marie bore her husband three sons and three daughters. 

Assassination of Henri 

Though even after the Treaty of Vervins and the death of 
Philip II Spain continued to be a source of trouble, Henri 
perceived that his chief immediate menace now came from 
the Spanish dynasty's close connexion with the Imperial house 
of Austria. This power he sought for a time to check by 
aUiances with the Protestant Governments of Europe. Then 
the religious and political disturbances of the German states, 
and specifically the dispute which arose concerning the succes- 
sion to the duchy of Cleves (i6og), provided him with a pretext 
to act. The war of aggression on which he was now resolved 
to enter was distasteful to many of his advisers as a war in 
defence of Protestantism. But he pushed forward his prepara- 
tions for it and announced his intention of leading his army 

^ Hereafter the recognized French form of this name — ^Marie de Medicis— 
will be used. 

3" 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

in person to the Rhine. His departure from Paris was fixed 
for May 19. On the afternoon of the 14th, accompanied by 
a small body-guard only — a few gentlemen and some servants 
on foot — ^he set out in an open carriage to visit Sully, who 
was lying ill at the Arsenal. On the way he was attacked by 
a fanatic named Ravaillac, who, leaning over from one of the 
back wheels of his coach, struck him with a dagger two blows 
in rapid succession, the second blow severing an artery near 
the heart and proving instantly fatal. It was with difficulty 
that the murderer was saved from the fury of the crowd. A 
fortnight later he was put to death with the most horrible 
tortures which the ingenuity of his judges could devise. 

It remains uncertain whether Ravaillac acted on his own 
initiative or as a tool in the hands of others — perhaps of the 
Jesuits^ or of Spain. The former supposition is the more 
probable. But even so the crime was the direct result of the 
violent diatribes of the recalcitrant clergy, who were still fired 
with the worst passions of the days of the Sixteen. It was not 
their fault that their vile teachings, which had now turned 
a wretched visionary's unstable brain, had not already borne 
practical fruit. Nineteen previous attempts at assassination 
had been made. 

" When I am no more," said Henri to some of his nobles, 
on the very morning of the day of his death, " you will know 
what you have lost." And he was right. The grief of the 
people in Paris, and, as the news of the tragedy spread, through- 
out the provinces, was, contemporaries tell us, indescribable. 
Patriotic Frenchmen of all classes and opinions mourned his 
loss as that of a true father of his country. 

Henri's Character 

Henri's character has been very variously estimated, but 
there seems little ground to demur to Henri Martin's judgment 
that he was on the whole the greatest of all the Kings of France. 
He had, it is true, many serious personal defects, the worst 

1 In 1595 the Jesiiits had been banished from France for inspiring an attempt 
on the life of the King. They were, however, allowed to return in 1603. 
312 * 



HENRI IV 

of which were the grossness of his taste and manners — remarked 
even at the time — and the shameless sensuality which led him 
all through his life to indulge in the coarsest pleasures and to 
descend on occasion to the most vulgar intrigues. His private 
biography is indeed in large measure a chronicle of scandals, 
and his relations with his two wives and his numerous mistresses 
have provided ample material for gossiping pens. But, on the 
other hand, he was warm-hearted, generous, magnanimous, 
wonderfully free from prejudices, and for his age singularly 
humane. He possessed also the qualities of nature which were 
best calculated to make him popular and to disarm the criti- 
cism even of those who were most keenly alive to his faults, 
for he w^as affable, though brusque, frank (though his frankness 
covered a good deal of dissimulation), witty, full of bonhomie, 
absolutely indifferent to dangers and privations, and openly 
impatient of ceremonial. He is undoubtedly one of the most 
engaging and romantic figures in histor}^ while as a ruler he 
claims our admiration by reason of his breadth of view and his 
enlightenment. From first to last he laboured for the welfare 
of France and with the interests of his people always in the 
forefront of his thought. 



313 



CHAPTER II 

LOUIS XIII: FIRST PERIOD 

i6 1 0-1624 

HENRI'S eldest legitimate son, Ivouis, was born at Fon- 
tainebleau on September 27, 1601, and was therefore 
not nine years old at the time of his father's death. 
The late King's advisers saw the danger lest the sudden with- 
drawal of a strong hand from the reins of power might at once 
let loose the forces of anarchy. It was necessary to preserve 
o;;der at any cost. Scarcely had Henri's body been carried 
to the I^ouvre, therefore, before the Parliament of Paris was 
hastily convened, and at the direction of the Duke of ^Spernon 
the' Queen-Mother was proclaimed Regent of the realm during 
the young King's minority. 

In thus arrogating to itself the right of interpreting the 
national will the Parliament acted without precedent and in 
excess of its constitutional powers. But at such a moment 
of crisis questions of theory were not too carefully scrutinized, 
nor did any one pause to consider the possible results which 
might follow the preponderance of so anomalous a body as the 
magistrature of Paris in the affairs of State. 

The Regency of Marie de Medicis : Concini 

Marie's appointment to the supreme control of government 
was, however, a mistake. She|was, tojbegin with, a foreigner, 
and as such was distrusted by the people ; she was a common- 
place and narrow-minded woman, lethargic of temperament 
and weak of will ; and, worse than all — ^for this led her to take 
up a wrong attitude toward those who might have helped her 
in the extreme difficulties of the political situation — she was 
already completely under the influence of two vulgar and 

314 



LOUIS XIII 

intriguing favourites, Italians like herself. On coming to 
France ten years before, she had brought with her a little 
ill-formed woman, with pinched features and sparkling black 
eyes, named I^eonora Dori or Galigai, her foster-sister and 
bosom friend. Iti her numerous suite there had also been 
a young man, Concino Concini, the son of a minor official at 
the Florentine Court. Shrewd, self-seeking, ambitious, this 
needy adventurer — he was at the time penniless and deeply 
in debt — determined to make his way in his new home, and 
as a first step to advancement he married the Queen's confi- 
dante. Though there was no real affection between the pair, 
they were w^ell matched, and worked together for their mutual 
interests. The union thus achieved what Concini had designed : 
it brought him into intimate relations with the Queen. The 
scandalous stories which soon gathered about these relations 
and were popularized in obscene street songs may be dismissed. 
But the ascendancy which the wily Florentine gained over 
the Queen's mind was patent to all. That ascendancy he 
turned to good account, for he soon made himself rich, and now 
by money and now by influence obtained position after position 
of honour and power. Before long he was Baron of lyusigny ; 
then Marquis of Ancre and Governor of Amiens, Peronne, 
and Dieppe ; then, though he had never seen a battle and 
was in fact a good deal of a poltroon, Marshal of France. 

Marie's first important step as Regent was taken under 
Concini's advice, and was the practical reversal of her late 
husband's foreign policy. Henri's aim had been to check 
the power of Spain and Austria. She, on the other hand, 
sought their support. It was impossible at once to abandon 
the engagements to which France stood committed, and a 
small force was accordingly sent into Germany to join the 
English and the Dutch. But the War of the Cleves Succession 
was soon brought to a close by the indecisive Truce of Witstett, 
and this gave Marie the opportunity for which she was waiting 
of withdrawing from all interference in German affairs. At 
the same time she entered into negotiations with Spain, the 
upshot of which was an agreement for a double matrimonial 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

alliance through the union of I^ouis with the Infanta Anne of 
Austria, and of I^ouis' sister Elisabeth with the son of Philip III. 

There were those among the former counsellors of Henri IV — 
men like Villeroy and Jeannin, who had once belonged to the 
League — who were ready to welcome this new Spanish policy. 
But Sully vigorously opposed it. The result was that he 
was dismissed from Council and Court. Thus ended the public 
career of a statesman who had performed si;ich yeoman service 
in restoring the prosperity of the country. He now retired 
to Poitou (of which he was Governor), where he lived till his 
death in 1641. 

The Huguenots naturally took alarm at these proceedings, 
"^ which seemed indirectly to threaten their cause. At a general 
assembly held at Saumur they therefore protested against 
the Spanish marriages and the treatment of Sully, and inci- 
dentally took occasion to make various demands for the 
further extension of their privileges. The Government threw 
oil on the troubled waters by despatching commissioners into 
the provinces to see that the provisions of the Edict of Nantes 
were being properly carried out. This for the moment satisfied 
the great body of the Protestants, who, with their minds still 
haunted with the awful memories of civil strife, were, like the 
mass of their Catholic compatriots, mainly concerned for the 
preservation of peace. 

First Revolt of the Nobles 

The case, however, was different with the great nobles. The 
closing years of Henri IV's reign had witnessed an enormous 
development of the power of the Crown at their expense. But 
their feudal spirit was not yet broken and they still cherished 
dreams of turning their governorships into petty kingdoms. 
They were, moreover, in chronic need of money for the up- 
keep of the immense and sumptuous establishments which had 
now become a feature of their princely state. Henri's policy 
of compromise had taught them the profitableness of sedition, 
and in sedition they once more saw the means of satisfying 
their territorial ambitions, and even more their greed. If 
316 







1 




1 


H9f«I9IK~ 




m 






WM v^ 




^9 






^^V;.-'*^K 




^1 






K\ •^F 


^■'%. - 


'".^p 








IBb 


:,^ 


v; 






45. Lkonora Gawgai 



46. CONCINI 





47. The Prince of Conde; 



48. The Duke of Luynes 



316 



LOUIS XIII 

success had attended rebellion with a ruler like the late King 
on the throne, still more likely was it to reward their efforts 
now that they had to deal with an incapable woman and with 
a Government weakened by internal dissensions which she was 
powerless ta control. 

Marie met their demands for money until the reserves 
accumulated at the Treasury by Sully had been exhausted, 
and then they openly raised the standard of revolt. The lead 
in this new movement was taken by the Prince of Conde. A 
selfish and irresolute man, with no talent except for intrigue. 
Conde none the less wielded great influence by reason of his 
wealth and rank. He was closely related to the royal family, 
and only the lives of lyouis XIII and his younger brother 
Gaston stood between him and the crown. Furthermore, 
though himself a Catholic, he was a descendant of the famous 
Huguenot chief, and as such had a certain hold upon the more 
restless portion of the Protestant population. He began by 
issuing a manifesto addressed to the people in which he made 
various accusations against the Government, and, adopting 
the usual pretence of acting in the national interest, demanded 
the convocation of the States-General for the reform of the 
abuses specified. As a popular appeal this document had not 
the slightest effect. But though the masses were indifferent, 
a number of malcontent nobles at once joined the revolt, among 
them the Dukes of I^ongueville, Bouillon, Nevers, and Mayenne, 
and the young Duke of Vendome, Henri IV's natural son by 
Gabrielle d'Bstrees. There was, indeed, no love lost between 
the Conde faction and the Guise faction ; but, keen as were 
their jealousies, they were united in a common hatred of 
Concini. 

Some of the Regent's advisers urged her to take drastic 
action to crush the rebellion. But the feeble Queen-Mother, 
guided by her timorous favourite, preferred to fall back once 
more upon the old plan of compromise and bribery. Peace 
was secured by the Treaty of Sainte-Menehould (May 1614). 
I^arge sums of money were paid over to the chief insurgents, 
and a promise was made that the States should be convened 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and that the proposed Spanish marriages should be brought 
before them for ratification. 

The States-General of 1614 

The States-General accordingly met in Paris in October 
1614 — for the last time, as it proved, till the very eve of the 
Revolution. They were composed of 464 deputies : 140 of 
the clergy, 132 of the nobility, and 192 of' the Third Kstate.^ 
The nobles had intended to use this assembly for the furtherance 
of their own designs, but in this they were disappointed, for 
the Court had been careful to control the elections, and a strongly 
royalist feeling prevailed throughout the representation. The 
interests of the Government were at the same time favoured 
by the total want of harmony which soon became apparent 
among the three orders. Had the States acted as a united 
body they might have been strong enough to impose their 
will upon the Court. As it was they failed to come to agree- 
ment upon any one point of importance in their deliberations. 
The clergy demanded the promulgation of the decrees of the 
Council of Trent, Henri's refusal to accept which had been a 
standing offence to the Ultramontane party, who wished to 
bring the Gallican Church into entire subjection to Rome. 
The nobility demanded the abolition of the paulette.^ The 
Third Estate demanded the reform of the finances, reduction 
of taxation, and the suppression of the enormous pensions 
paid to the great lords, the amount of which had doubled 
since Henri's death ; and, further, that the Ultramontane 

* It is important to remember that the Third Kstate was in no sense repre- 
sentative of the nation. It was representative only of the haute bourgeoisie. 
Nearly all the deputies belonged to the noblesse de robe, or official classes, as 
officers of finance or justice, mayors, provosts, lawyers, and so on. See the 
list of deputies printed in Thierry's Histoire du Tiers-^tat, Appendix II. 

* This was an annual tax instituted by Sully, by payment of which holders 
of public offices could not only enjoy such offices in perpetuity, but also 
dispose of them by sale as they chose or transmit them to their heirs. The 
sale of public offices had long been recognized, but this imposition turned the 
office-holders of France into a vast corporation with hereditary rights — a 
noblesse de robe, which at once aroused the antagonism of the noblesse d'epe'e, 
or territorial aristocracy, because its interests and influence were so obviously 
inimical to its own. 

318 



LOUIS XIII 

doctrines of the clergy should be formally condemned. The 
orders were, indeed, at cross-purposes on everjrthing except the 
Spanish marriages, which were approved. 

One incident which occurred during the proceedings will 
serve to show the spirit which animated the nobility. The 
orator of the Third Estate, Henri de Mesmes, Civil lyieutenant 
of Paris, in a speech which was intended to be pacific, had 
ventured to represent the three orders as the three children 
of a common mother, France, the clergy being the eldest, the 
nobility the second {puisne), the bourgeoisie the youngest 
(cadet) of the family ; and he had even reminded his auditors 
how often it happened in families that the youngest sons were 
called upon to restore the home which their elders had ruined. 
The nobility regarded this parable as an insult, and through 
their president, the Baron of Senecey, complained to the King. 
As a commentary upon this episode we may recall the fact 
that when the addresses of the orders were presented to the 
King the orators of the clergy and the nobility were allowed 
to remain standing, while the representative of the Third 
Estate spoke on bended knee. 

Yet the most significant thing about this last meeting of the 
States-General till the very close of the Old Regime was the 
proof which it gave of the growth of political intelligence in 
the Third Order. Many of their proposals regarding finance, 
administration, and commerce were characterized by remark- 
able wisdom and public spirit ; their cahiers, indeed, containing 
"a vast programme of reforms, some of which were carried 
out by the great ministers of the seventeenth century, while 
others had to wait till 1789." ^ None the less all their 
efforts were doomed to sterility on account not only of the 
opposition of the nobility, but also of the radical weakness 
of the States as a constitutional assembly. It must be remem- 
bered that the functions of the States were extremely limited. 
They had no power to decree or to legislate. They could 
only petition the Crown ; and as they had no control over 
the national purse they lacked the great means which the 
* Thierry, Histoire du Tiers-Etat, pp. 160, 161. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

English House of Commons possessed of enforcing their 
requests. 

The cahiers presented, the Third Estate desired to remain 
in session till the royal reply had been received. But this 
did not suit the Government, which scented danger in their 
deliberations and was in a hurry to be rid of them. On 
March 24, 1615, therefore, the States broke up, having accom- 
plished nothing. 

Second Revolt of the Nobles 

This was the signal for further action on the part of the 
unruly nobles, who had already squandered the money which 
they had wrung from the Treasury on the occasion of their 
former easy victory. With Conde again at their head, they 
had the effrontery to complain that the demands of the States 
had not been met and that by the pending alliances the 
Government were guilty of sacrificing the interests of France 
to ,tho§e of Spain. In taking this line their hope was of course 
to enlist popular sentiment on their side. Their attempt to 
draw the Parliament of Paris into the quarrel failed ; but, on 
the other hand, they succeeded in stirring the Huguenots in 
the south. That autumn the Court travelled to the Spanish 
frontier for the celebration of the double marriage, and on 
the way ran no little risk from the proximity of Conde's troops. 
But once more the policy of concession was adopted, and peace 
was bought by the Treaty of I^oudun (May 1616). Richelieu 
afterward estimated that this fresh truce cost the Treasury 
no less than six millions of livres, a million and a half of which 
went into the pockets of Conde alone. To complete the 
triumph of the oligarchic party, Conde was also made chief 
of the Council. 

This second success turned the heads of the Prince and his- 
foUowers, who now bore themselves with great insolence at 
Court, and even began to talk of declaring Henri's second 
marriage invalid, displacing lyouis as illegitimate, and putting 
Conde on the throne. This time, however, they overreached 
themselves. Concini, believing his life to be in danger, had 
320 



LOUIS XIII 

taken refuge in Normandy, but from that place of safety he 
sent urgent messages to the Regent pointing out the abso- 
lute necessity of vigorous action. Marie at length rose to 
the occasion, and on September i, 1616, Conde was arrested 
and sent to- the Bastille. This bolt out of the blue filled 
his adherents with consternation, and Mayenne, lyongueville, 
Nevers, and Bouillon fled from the Court. Others of the faction 
who remained behind endeavoured to influence the people of 
Paris on behalf of their cause, but without success. Then 
Concini returned, made a clearance of all the old ministers, put 
creatures of his own in their places, and so established himself 
at the head of the Government more firmly than ever. In 
the meantime the leading nobles had taken up their head- 
quarters at Soissons. Thence they demanded the release of 
Conde and the expulsion of Concini, and even made overtures 
to the young King, seeking to persuade him that they were 
really acting in his interests against a disloyal cabal at Court. 
The Government replied by proclaiming them guilty of high 
treason. Armies were despatched into the disaffected pro- 
vinces. Soissons was besieged. The triumph of the Govern- 
ment would now have been assured but for the rise of unforeseen 
complications within the Court itself. 

Death of Concini : Albert de Luynes 

lyouis was now fifteen. According to the traditions of the 
French monarchy, he had attained his majority on his thirteenth 
birthday, and from that time on he had been King in form. 
But the real power had still remained in the hands of his mother. 
Sluggish by nature, indifferent to affairs, he had meanwhile 
spent his time with a group of young associates, hunting, 
fishing, and indulging in curiously trivial pursuits, such as 
sewing and cookery. He was thus regarded as a mere puppet 
at the Court ; no one paid the slightest attention to him ; the 
various factions carried on their quarrels without reference 
to his position or his will. But though apparently acquiescing 
in his anomalous situation he was in secret already brooding 
over it. He had come to hate his mother because, as he 

X 321 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

realized, she wanted to keep him in perpetual tutelage ; and 
even more bitterly he hated her counsellors, and especially the 
all-powerful favourite Concini, who on many occasions had 
treated him with marked discourtesy. Now among those who 
formed his personal retinue was a young man, some twenty 
years his senior, named Albert de I^uynes, who had first 
endeared himself to him by his skill in falconry. Ambitious, 
clever, and unscrupulous, de lyuynes had beeu quick to improve 
his opportunity, and had soon obtained an ascendancy over 
the boy-King's mind as great as that which Concini exercised 
over the Queen-Mother. He saw how much it would be to 
his advantage to make I^ouis King in reality as well as in 
name, and easily induced his young master to connive in a 
plot for Concini's overthrow. By his direction lyouis ordered 
his captain of the guard, X'Hopital de Vitry, to arrest the 
Florentine, and to kill him on the spot if he made the smallest 
show of resistance. Accordingly on the morning of April 24, 
1617, as Concini was about to enter the I^ouvre, he was stopped 
by'de Vitry and a posse of armed men. " I arrest you in the 
King's name," said the captain, and before Concini could turn 
round three pistol-shots were fired by the guard, and he fell 
dead. Louis, seated on a billiard table, received de Vitry's 
report with undisguised satisfaction. " Merci, grand merci a 
vous," he exclaimed ; "a cette heure je suis roi." The fallen 
favourite was hastily buried, but the long pent-up hatred 
of the populace of Paris was not yet assuaged. They ex- 
humed the corpse, dragged it with noisy demonstrations 
through the- streets, and burned it before the dead man's 
palace in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Vengeance also over- 
took his wife, who was charged with practising the black 
arts in order to obtain influence over the Queen-Mother, 
found guilty after a farcical trial, and beheaded in the Place 
de Greve. 

Marie felt no personal regret for the loss of her favourites, 
for her infatuation for them was now a thing of the past. But 
she saw at once that her reign was at an end. She tried in 
vain to make terms with her son, and was presently forced to 
322 




49- IvOUiS XIII 



322 



LOUIS XIII 

retire in exile to Blois, where her miniature Court forthwith 
became a centre of intrigue. 

The great nobles of the malcontent party now hastened back 
to Paris in the belief that the death of Concini had cleared the 
way for them. But they soon learned their mistake. De I^uynes 
had acted in his own interests, not in theirs, and he was not 
the man to allow them to appropriate the spoils. " Henceforth 
I will be King myself,*' IvOuis had declared when he received 
the homage of the courtiers on the day of the assassination. 
But as a matter of fact the King's favourite now seized 
the power which hitherto had been in the Queen-Mother's 
favourite's hands. Most of Concini's confiscated property was 
transferred to him. He became Duke and Peer of France 
and Governor of Picardy, and presently increased his prestige 
by marriage with a member of the great Breton family of the 
Rohans. One of his brothers was made Duke of Chaulnes, the 
other Duke of lyUxembourg-Piney. 

Nothing was now left for the insubordinate nobles in their 
disappointment but to join forces with their former enemy, 
the Queen-Mother. With the help of the Duke of !6pernon, 
whose turbulent nature was still unaffected by age, Marie made 
her escape from Blois (February 1619) and sought asylum in 
the Duke's territory of Angouleme. lyike Concini before him, 
de lyuynes was too fearful of consequences to resort to violent 
measures, and the threatened outbreak of hostilities was for 
the moment warded off by an agreement under which Marie 
received as a sop the government of Anjou. But from their 
centre at Angers the nobles continued their eft'orts to arouse 
the provinces against the King. There was some lively fight- 
ing in which the advantage was mainly with the royal arms. 
But by this time Marie had begun to perceive that even in 
the now unlikely event of success she stood to gain very little 
for herself through her persistent opposition to her son. In 
August 1620 she finally came to terms with him, the arrange- 
ment of the preceding year being confirmed. 



323 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Trouble with the Huguenots 

More serious troubles were, however, brewing. The Govern- 
ment had formally ratified the Edict of Nantes, and all over 
the country, there had been a lull in religious strife. But the 
immense masses of controversial literature which now poured 
from the press on one and the other side gave evidence that 
religious passions were still strong, and these passions were 
again inflamed by the beginnings in Germany of what was to 
prove the terrible Thirty Years' War. Deeply moved by the 
menace to their cause involved in the matrimonial alliance 
with Spain, the Huguenots now entered, most unwisely and 
with fatal results, as the sequel was to show, upon an aggres- 
sive policy which carried them far beyond the charter of their 
liberties. Their fortified towns were already little republics 
on jbhe model of Geneva, and now, by welding these into a 
solid union, dividing France into great administrative districts, 
in each of which there were a military commander and a 
provincial council, and establishing representative assemblies 
which freely discussed not theological questions only but also 
national affairs, they set up what was indeed to all intsnts 
and purposes a state within a state. Weak and divided as 
it was, the Government was bound to take cognizance of such 
separatist ambitions, which were tantamount to a challenge 
both to its own supremacy and to the integrity of the realm. 
Then a crisis was precipitated by the action of the King in 
Beam. lyouis* grandmother, Jeanne d'Albret, had prohibited 
the Catholic religion in that province and had confiscated 
the property of the Church. At the time of his absolution 
Henri IV had promised that both religion and property should 
be restored. But though this promise had been redeemed in 
respect of worship, the Church lands had remained in possession 
of the Huguenots. By a royal edict of June 1617 such lands 
were at length retransferred to the clergy. To this the 
Huguenots replied by protests and threats. For the time 
being the Government was too much embarrassed by the 
coalition between the Queen-Mother and the nobles to give 
324 



LOUIS XIII 

much attention to other matters, and things were allowed 
to drift. But as soon as his hands were free lyouis determined 
to enforce the edict, marched into Beam at the head of an 
army (1620), and began a vigorous campaign to stamp out 
the rebellion which his presence inspired. He met, however, 
with stubborn resistance, and hostilities continued till October 
1622. Peace was then arranged by the Treaty of Montpellier, 
on terms which showed that the Protestants were already losing 
ground. The Edict of Nantes was, indeed, reconfirmed ; but, 
on the other hand, the political assemblies of the Reformers 
were forbidden as illegal, and all their fortified towns were 
taken from them except Montauban and I^a Rochelle. Conde, 
now again at liberty, was so indignant at this treaty that he 
left the Court and set out for Italy. 

One event of special importance on account of its indirect 
results occurred during this war. At the siege of Montauban 
in December 162 1 de lyuynes was attacked by a fever which 
in four days proved fatal. His influence was already on the 
wane, and his death led to an immediate reorganization of 
the Ministry, and before long to the supremacy of the great 
statesman who for the next eighteen years, as the power behind 
the throne, was to shape the destinies of France^ — Richelieu. 



325 



CHAPTER III 

LOUIS XIII : SECOND PERIOD 

1624-1643 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF RICHBI.IEU 

ARMAND-JBAN DU PI.KSSIS DK RICHBI.IEU was 
born in Paris in 1585. Originally intended for the 
army, he decided instead to enter the Church, and at 
twenty-two was consecrated to the Bishopric of Lu9on. He 
was elected to represent the clergy of Poitou at the States- 
General of 1614, and so made his mark in the debates that 
on the presentation of the cahiers to the King he was chosen 
as orator of his order. He then attracted the attention of 
the Qneen-Mother and Concini, was made a member of the 
Council, and a little later became Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs. The new policy adopted by the Government against 
the nobles, which had its first expression in Conde's arrest, 
was in part due to his advice. His career was checked for a 
time by Concini's downfall, which obliged him to retire to his 
diocese. But he presently formed an alliance with de lyuynes, 
returned to Court, and was largely instrumental in bringing 
about the reconciliation between the Queen-Mother and her 
son. He soon enjoyed the complete confidence of Marie, now 
once more established in the capital, and through her influence 
he obtained in 1622 the cardinal's hat. In 1624 he again 
became one of the King's ministers, and within a few months 
was head of the Council and virtually ruler of the State. 

Richelieu and Louis XIII 

It is necessary to consider rather carefully the relations of 
the minister and the King during the eighteen years of the 
former's power. % 

326 



LOUIS XIII 

Richelieu- dominated I^ouis* mind in part by the over- 
whelming force of his genius, but in part also by his complete 
understanding of the peculiar character of his nominal master, 
and by his extraordinary tact in dealing with him. I/Ouis 
was moody,' capricious, uncertain in temper, extremely jealous 
of his dignity and prerogatives, suspicious of those who served 
him, and always ready to take offence. Though his education 
had been singularly defective and the early influences of his 
life thoroughly bad, he developed a keen interest in public 
affairs, and became really anxious according to his lights to 
govern for the good of his country. Nor was he without ability, 
though his mental activity was continually checked by his 
natural indolence, itself in large measure the result of his 
poor health.^ At the same time he was, in spite of his fickleness, 
both self-confident and obstinate, and while it was often almost 
impossible to bring him to a decision, it was an equally hard 
matter to move him to a revision of judgment when once he 
had made up his mind. Had he been a mere zero and do- 
nothing king the task of his autocratic adviser would have 
been relatively simple. As it was it was fraught with countless 
difficulties and dangers. Moreover, the situation was compli- 
cated by strong personal feelings. It is certain that I^ouis 
disliked his minister— certain that he stood in fear of him. 
Yet his disposition made it necessary that he should have 
some one to lean upon ; he fully appreciated Richelieu's 
greatness ; and if he dreaded his power, he dreaded even more 
what might happen if he were deprived of his support. The 
delicacy of Richelieu's position and the slenderness of the 
thread by which he held to office will now be understood. 
He, on his side, knew perfectly well that he depended entirely 
upon the uncertain favour of an infirm and peevish master, 

^ He was subject all through his life to attacks, often serious, of enteric 
fever. We can only wonder, not so much that he survived so many illnesses, 
as that he did not succumb to his physicians, whose treatment of him throws 
a lurid light upon the drastic methods then in vogue among the medical 
profession. Without entering into therapeutic details, I may just say by 
way of illustration that in one year the unfortunate King was bled forty-seven 
times. 

327 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and from first to last his conduct was guided by recognition 
of this one central fact. Dictator as he was, he was always 
the courtier. His hand of iron was always encased in a glove 
of velvet. He never for a moment usurped or appeared to 
usurp the functions of royalty. He never ventured upon a 
single step without lyouis' express consent. He respected the 
King's sovereign attributes, and though at times he lectured 
him on his duties with remarkable plainness of speech, he 
always kept up an elaborate show of acting only in his behalf 
and as the instrument of his will. In this way, with con- 
summate adroitness and skill, he allayed the King's sus- 
picions and flattered his susceptibilities, while in every detail 
of administration he made his own will prevail. And this he 
did amid obstacles and perils beyond those which arose from 
the character of the King himself. The great minister was 
hated at Court and unpopular outside. He had many enemies 
and hardly a single friend. Formidable influences were ever 
at work to compass his downfall, and there were innumerable 
plots against his power and his life. When all these circum- 
stances are remembered, we cannot but admire the calm 
resolution, the steady courage, and the marvellous dexterity 
with which he steered his frail bark among the rocks and 
shallows and maintained his supremacy unshaken till the verj^ 
hour of his death. 

Richelieu's Policy and Programme 

Richelieu's political ideals were fully formulated in his 
own mind long before he came to power ; when once he felt 
the ground firm beneath his feet he made their realization the 
business of his life. The ends which he proposed can be very 
briefly defined. On the one hand he aimed so to strengthen 
the central authority of the Crown as to transform the govern- 
ment of France into a monarchy absolute in fact as well as 
in name. On the other hand he sought to make France pre- 
eminent among the nations of Europe. These objects involved 
on the domestic side the reduction of the nobles to submission 
and the destruction of the secular pretensions of the Huguenots, 
328 




50. RiCHKiJKU 



328 



LOUIS XIII 

and on the foreign side a return to Henri IV's aggressive policy 
against Spain. But though we can thus distinguish between 
his domestic and his foreign ambitions, we must remember 
that these were closely connected in his own thought, since 
the entire suppression of all centrifugal forces at home was, 
as he rightly judged, a condition precedent to the success of 
his plans abroad. 

Such then was his programme. How far was he successful 
in carrying it out ? In answering this question it will be 
convenient for us to follow the main lines of his administration 
one by one, disregarding where necessary the actual chrono- 
logical sequence of events. We will begin with his systematic 
efforts to crush the Huguenots. 

Richelieu and the Huguenots 

It must be clearly understood that these efforts were directed 
against the Huguenots solely as a political power. With their 
creed and their liberty of conscience he never proposed to 
meddle. We have already seen that, stiffened in their anta- 
gonism to the Government by occurrences which seemed to 
them to menace their privileges, they had gradually arrogated 
to themselves rights which, as we have put it, practically 
constituted them a state within the State. They were no 
longer merely a religious organization demanding freedom of 
thought and worship. They had become a political faction 
ready at all times to make common cause not only with other 
unruly factions, but even with the foreign enemies of their 
country. Numerically weak though they were, they were 
thus a source of constant danger to the peace and order of the 
nation. It was for these reasons that Richelieu resolved to 
strike without mercy at their pretensions and to stop at nothing 
until he had reduced them to impotency. 

It was certain in the circumstances that he would soon 
receive ample provocation to action. The memory of the 
defeat which they had recently suffered still rankled in the 
minds of the more mutinous of the Protestant leaders, who 
were therefore on the alert for any excuse to stir up further 

329 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

trouble. They saw their chance when at the very opening of 
RicheHeu's administration France became involved with Spain. 
On the ground that the Treaty of Montpellier had not been 
carried out, they once more took up arms, the centre of the 
disturbance being the great stronghold of the party — that 
" nest of wasps," as Richelieu called it — ^the powerfully fortified 
city of lya Rochelle. A curious feature of the brief struggle 
which ensued was that Richelieu suppressed the insurrection 
with the help of the Protestant Powers. His great difficulty 
was the want of a fleet. But England and Holland were 
extremely angry with the Huguenots for jeopardizing the 
combination against Spain, and provided him with ships, 
which he manned with French troops ; and with these he 
obtained so complete a victory over the insurgents that one 
of their chiefs, the Seigneur de Soubise, was forced to fly to 
Bngland. Preoccupation with foreign affairs, however, pre- 
vented Richelieu from following up this advantage, and he 
therefore patched up a hasty peace (February 1626) on the 
basis of the Treaty of Montpellier. Naturally no one was 
satisfied. The Catholics were furious at what they regarded 
as his capitulation to their enemies. The Protestants still 
nursed their pet grievances — the continued existence of the 
great fortresses which had recently been erected near I^a 
Rochelle, and against which they had protested, the old 
troubles in Beam, the loss of the fortified towns which they 
deemed essential to their safety. But Richelieu himself never 
intended the convention to be permanent. He was simply 
biding his time. 

The immediate cause of the final conflict was the inter- 
vention of England. One of Richelieu's first acts as Prime 
Minister had been the conclusion by marriage of the long- 
standing engagement between lyouis' youngest sister, Marie, 
and Charles I. This was a move in his general foreign policy. 
But it led to quarrels which had an unfortunate influence on 
international relationships. Charges and counter-charges of bad 
faith were soon made. The French Government complained 
that the lot of the English Catholics, which Charles had promised 
330 



LOUIS XIII 

to ameliorate, had grown worse instead of better ; the English 
Government retaliated by accusing lyouis of similar perfidious- 
ness in respect of his Protestant subjects. Matters were further 
embroiled by the indiscreet behaviour of the Duke of Bucking- 
ham, then at the height of his power. On the occasion of the 
nuptials that vain and foolish nobleman had been sent to 
Paris as Charles' envoy extraordinary, and had there conducted 
himself with outrageous gallantry, even to the extent, it was 
alleged, of making love to the Queen. Now Ivouis neglected 
his wife, it is true, but he was a jealous husband as well as 
a jealous King, and he took offence. The consequence was 
that when a little later Buckingham planned another visit to 
Paris he was informed that he would be regarded as a persona 
non grata at the French Court. His pique at this rebuff was 
one among the various factors which were co-operating in 
the growing ill-feeling between the two countries. Meaiiwhile 
Soubise in exile was busy stirring up English sentiment in 
favour of his coreligionists at home. Then the peace which 
Richelieu made with Spain in March 1626 increased the tension 
to breaking-point. Angry at lyouis' defection, Charles resolved 
to put himself forv\^ard as the protector of the French Protes- 
tants. In this he was egged on by the self-seeking Buckingham, 
who, knowing that a war with France undertaken on such an 
issue would be widely popular in England, saw in it a chance 
of wiping out the insult which he had received from the French 
Court and at the same time covering himself with glory. 

In July 1627 ^ large fleet was accordingly despatched to La 
Rochelle, with Buckingham in supreme command, and after 
a sharp engagement the English troops effected a landing on 
the island of Re, just outside the harbour, and laid siege to 
Fort Saint-Martin. But Buckingham was as incompetent as 
he was arrogant. Saint-Martin, like the neighbouring Fort 
Saint-Louis, was at the moment ill prepared for resistance, 
and he might have carried both by assault and made himself 
master of the island. Instead of doing this, he turned the 
attack into a blockade. Richelieu on his side acted with 
characteristic promptitude and decision, and as the public 

331 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Treasury was unequal to the sudden demand made upon it, 
he came to the rescue with his private purse. In August he 
arrived on the scene of action accompanied by the King, 
barely recovered from a severe bout of fever. The condition 
of the besieged garrison was already growing desperate, but 
it was not until the night of September 27, when it was within 
three days of the end of its provisions, that Richelieu succeeded 
in relieving it with a fresh suppl}^ of food. A little later he 
landed reinforcements on the island. Buckingham, who had 
staked everything on his design for starving out the French, 
was now faced by the imminent danger of being starved out 
himself. On November 27 he made a desperate effort to carry 
the fort by storm. The attempt was a pitiful failure, and the 
fatuous nobleman had to beat a hasty retreat to England with 
only a wretched remnant of the force he had taken out with 
l^im a few months before. 

His expedition had, however, involved the Huguenots once 
more in war with their Government. At the outset the people 
of I^a Rochelle had shown no desire for an alliance with 
England, but they had been led to co-operate with Bucking- 
ham by the urgency of their leaders. Their decision was now 
followed by a general rising of the Protestants in the south. 
Entrusting Conde and Montmorency with the task of subduing 
lyanguedoc, Richelieu resolved to concentrate all his energies 
on the destruction of Iva Rochelle. Realizing that its defences 
were practically impregnable, he at once proceeded to institute 
a rigorous blockade. Immense lines of fortifications cut off 
the city entirely on the land side ; the harbour was closed by 
a gigantic dike, the construction of which, under the direction 
of two Parisian engineers, was the arduous labour of six months. 
But, inspired by the magnificent courage of the old Duchess 
of Rohan and of the mayor, Jean Guiton, who threatened to 
stab any one who even hinted at surrender, the Rochelais 
set up a stubborn defence. In May 1628 an English fleet 
under lyord Denbigh arrived outside the still unfinished dike, 
but retired without striking a blow. In September Charles 
despatched a stronger expedition under the Earl of Lindsey, 
332 



l2^o^ftra;£lcie : 'fviIl€!'de.iaRochelle aaet fes forterelI^,comme eiie eit a preleiit: 




51. A Bird's-eye View of I/A RocheItI^E at the Time of 
THE Siege of 1627 



332 



LOUIS XIII 

as substitute for Buckingham, who had just fallen by an 
assassin's knife ; but this too proved a fiasco. By this time 
the city was reduced to the direst straits ; half the population 
was dead or dying of disease or famine ; scarcely 150 men fit 
for military service remained ; and as the last hope of relief 
from England had now disappeared, even the lion-hearted 
mayor was forced to admit that surrender was inevitable. On 
October 28, therefore, I^a Rochelle capitulated, after a siege 
which had lasted fifteen months, and on November i the King 
made a triumphal entry into the city. The lives of the inhabi- 
tants were spared and their religious liberty confirmed ; but 
the city's fortifications were razed to the ground and its muni- 
cipal privileges cancelled. The fall of I^a Rochelle was presently 
followed by that of Montauban, the last bulwark of Protestant 
independence, and by the collapse of the Protestant revolt 
throughout the south ; and the Peace of Alais in June 1629 
brought the last religious war to an end. Richelieu's object 
was now attained ; the Huguenot party as a political organi- 
zation had ceased to exist. But we must not fail to appreciate 
the statesmanlike sagacity and moderation by which his policy 
toward them was marked. He left them no vestige of their 
former power ; but at the same time he did everything in reason 
to conciliate them. He reaffirmed the Edict of Nantes, assured 
them freedom of conscience and the protection of the law, 
and in proof of his entire confidence in their loyalty employed 
them throughout his ministry side by side with Catholics in 
the army, in diplomacy, in the magistrature, and in finance. 
The results justified his methods. The Huguenots now entered 
upon a long period of peace and prosperity as patriotic citizens 
of the State by which they had been absorbed. 

Richelieu and the Nobles 

In his second great task, the subjugation of the nobles, 
Richelieu encountered more serious difficulties, for here he 
had to contend, not with open antagonism only, but also 
with the continual plottings of his enemies at Court, who 
jealously watched for every chance to contrive his downfall. 

333 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

So virulent was their animosity, so deep their dread of his 
power, that these restless malcontents would gladly have 
seen him fail against the Huguenots, knowing that success 
would strengthen his hands against themselves ; an appre- 
hension pithily expressed in a chance phrase of Bassompierre, 
one of his three commanders at I^a Rochelle : " We shall be 
fools enough to take the city." A master in the art of intrigue, 
Richelieu was generally able to fight underground conspiracy 
with its own weapons. But it is hardly surprising that when- 
ever secret hatred burst out into open revolt he should have 
had recourse to measures, not of conciliation, but of extreme 
severity ; though it is necessary to add that these measures, 
more than an3^thing else in his ministerial career, have left a 
blot upon his name. 

The central figure in the first great cabal against him was the 
icing's brother, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, a weak, cowardly, 
and vicious youth, who had been made the willing puppet of 
a group of associates more resolute and courageous but not 
less vicious than himself. The immediate cause of the trouble 
was a Court quarrel about Gaston's marriage ^ — ^in itself a 
relatively trivial matter ; but, according to reports, perhaps 
exaggerated, the Cardinal's life was aimed at, and even the 
life of the King.^ The Count of Chalais, Gaston's chief confi- 
dant, was sent to the block ; other participants were imprisoned 
or banished ; and Gaston, who, characteristically enough, had 
turned traitor to his friends, made grovelling submission to 
lyouis and was forgiven. 

This happened in 1626. The next year Richelieu came into 
conflict with the nobles over the practice of duelling. This 
practice had grown into a frightful abuse in the early seven- 
teenth century ; bloody encounters, in which the seconds as 
well as the principals frequently took part, were of almost daily 
occurrence ; and, to make matters worse, the field of battle 

* Richelieu and I^ouis had decided to marry him. to Mile de Montpensier, of 
the house of Guise ; his advisers, on the other hand, iirged him to strengthen 
his position by union with a foreign princess. 

2 As I^ouis was still childless, Gaston was heir-presumptive to the throne. 

334 



s^ 



LOUIS XIII 

was often a public street or square. Richelieu's determination 
to put an end to this evil was part of his general policy against 
the turbulent nobility, who clung to it as a survival of their 
former right of private warfare. Edicts against it existed, 
but they had never been enforced. The Cardinal not only 
issued a fresh edict, but on the first occasion put it into execu- 
tion. The Count of Bouteville, who already had twenty -two 
duels to his credit, ostentatiously defied authority by fighting 
a twenty-third, in which once more he killed his man, the 
scene being the Place Royale. Though the offender belonged 
to the powerful family of the Montmorency, both he and his 
second, the Count of Chapelles, were beheaded in the Place 
de Gr^ve (June 1627). Richelieu failed to stamp out duelling, 
but in his attempt to do so he struck a vigorous blow at the 
pretensions of those who arrogantly set themselves above the 
law.^ His action, therefore, still further intensified their hatred 
of him. 

His next great danger arose in 1629-30, from the machina- 
tions of the Queen-Mother. It was largely through her in- 
fluence that he had first obtained his ascendancy at Court, 
but she too became jealous and alarmed the moment she 
realized that the power which she had intended to use for her 
own caprices was devoted entirely to the welfare of the State. 
Furious at what she regarded as his base ingratitude, she 
now turned against him with all the unreasoning passion of 
a narrow-minded, disappointed woman. Her anger was 
aroused in particular by his anti-Spanish policy, for the fact 
that her eldest daughter was Queen of Spain had inspired her 
with a sympathy for that country which made her utterly 
indifferent to the interests of France. Choosing a moment 
when lyouis was dangerously ill, she extorted from him a promise 

1 The glorification of the duel was one reason for Richelieu's attack on 
Corneille's Le Cid (1636); another being the fact that its protagonist was the 
famous Ruy Diaz de Bivar, the national hero of Spain. Readers of Les Trois 
Mousquetaires will remember that D'Artagnan's father advised his son to 
fight duels all the more now that they were forbidden, since he would thus 
show his courage twice over — ^in disobeying the edict as well as in facing 
death. 

33S 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

to dismiss the Cardinal, and her partisans at once began to 
gloat over their enemy's fall and their own brilliant prospects 
of advancement as its sequel. But Richelieu's offer at once 
to throw up his office brought the distracted King to his senses, 
and the upshot of an interview between the two at Versailles 
(then a simple hunting lodge in a deer-forest) was I^ouis* 
assurance that he would support his minister against all oppo- 
sition. The day on which the conspiracy collapsed — Novem- 
ber II, 1630 — has passed into history as la journe'e des dupes. 
Reprisals followed. One of the chief plotters, Michel de 
Marillac, Keeper of the Seals, was exiled ; his brother, the 
Marshal, was condemned to death ; Bassompierre was thrown 
into the Bastille ; the Queen-Mother was banished to Com- 
piegne, whence she presently escaped to Brussels ; Gaston 
sought refuge in lyorraine. 

'^The internal peace which Richelieu thus secured was, 
however, only temporary. Gaston's flighty temperament 
prompted him once more to stir up trouble. Much against 
his will, he had yielded to pressure and accepted Mile de 
Montpensier as his wife ; but now a widower, he cemented an 
alliance with Charles III, Duke of I^orraine, who for purposes 
of his own had taken up his cause, by secretly marrying the 
Duke's sister Marguerite. He also found a powerful adherent 
in Henri, Duke of Montmorency, Marshal of France and 
Governor of lyanguedoc. The people of that province had 
long enjoyed a large degree of political independence, which 
they now saw menaced by the measures which the Cardinal 
had taken on the suppression of the last Huguenot revolt. 
Resentment therefore made them ready to support their 
governor, whose personal influence over them was very strong, 
and who, indeed, as Richelieu complained, assumed within 
his territory an authority hardly second to that of the King. 
But notwithstanding the formidable character of this new 
insurrection it was easily crushed by a single decisive victory 
of the royal arms at Castelnaudary, in Languedoc (September i, 
1632). The contemptible Gaston again obtained pardon by 
abandoning his allies and making lavish promises of future 



LOUIS XIII 

good behaviour, while condign punishment was meted out 
to those who had been foohsh enough to co-operate with him. 
But though many suffered death, imprisonment, or disgrace, 
public attention was centred upon the fate of Montmorency. 
It was of course admitted that he had been guilty of high 
treason in bearing arms against his King. Yet it was the 
universal feeling that his position as the last scion of a family 
which ranked perhaps first in the ancient and illustrious 
nobility of France should at least be held to plead in his favour 
against a felon's doom, and this feeling, if it did not originate 
in, at any rate was deepened by, his immense personal popu- 
larity. The news that he was condemned to the block caused 
the most profound sensation throughout the country ; the 
people joined with the princes and the nobles in petitioning 
for his life ; prayers were offered in the churches in his behalf ; 
threats mingled with prayers. But Richelieu was inexorable, 
and Montmorency's head fell beneath the axe. This was 
Richelieu's greatest object-lesson to the mutinous nobles. 
He meant to teach them that treason is crime, whoever the 
criminal may be, and that no consideration of rank or character 
sufficed to put the traitor beyond the reach of the law. 

This lesson had its effect. Yet at the very end of his life 
the Cardinal had to meet two more plots against his power. 
The first of these was headed by the Count of Soissons and the 
Duke of Bouillon, and ended with the former's death in battle 
(1641). The chief figure in the second was young Henri 
Coifiier de Ruze, Marquis of Cinq-Mars. Placed as a boy at 
Court by Richelieu himself, Cinq-Mars quickly made himself 
popular by his personal beauty and attractive manners ; won 
in particular the favour of the King ; and at nineteen was 
already Grand Equerry. But success turned his head and 
filled him with extravagant ambitions ; he began to dream of 
playing the part of a de I^uynes ; and to that end he did his 
utmost to undermine Louis' confidence in his great minister. 
Then once more the smouldering embers of discontent were 
easily fanned into flame, and designs against Richelieu's life 
were formed of which the Queen-Mother was cognizant and 

Y 337 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

which had the secret support of Spain. But Richelieu, now 
nearing death, got wind of what was afoot and obtained (by 
what means is not known) a copy of the treasonable treaty 
with Spain. The plans of the conspirators were thus ex- 
posed. Cinq-Mars and his friend Frangois de Thou (son of the 
historian) were beheaded ; the Duke of Bouillon purchased 
pardon by surrendering his fortress of Sedan to the Crown ; 
while Gaston — the ever restless, ever futile , Gaston, who had 
again dabbled in rebellion and again scuttled and betrayed 
his accomplices the moment the bubble burst — ^though he 
escaped other punishment, was obliged to renounce all future 
claim to public office or dignity and to retire into private life 
at Blois. 

Such in brief were Richelieu's relations with the nobility 
during the eighteen years of his administration. To complete 
tl^is part of our story it must be added that by two general 
measures he struck at the roots of their traditional power. 
In the first place he ordered the demolition of all such feudal 
fortresses as were not needed for national defence, thus depriving 
their owners of the strongholds which in feudal days had enabled 
their ancestors to defy the king's authority, and which even 
yet remained a dangerous reminder of the former independence 
of their caste. Secondly, by an important development in 
the machinery of administration he secured the supremacy of 
the central Government in local affairs. The governorships 
of the provinces had long been in the hands of great ruling 
families, who (like the Montmorencys in lyanguedoc, for 
example) had come to regard them as hereditary possessions 
conferring what were tantamount to sovereign rights. Riche- 
lieu destroyed such territorial possessions by his system of 
intendants. These officials, who formed three classes — inten- 
dants of justice, of finance, and of police — ^were appointed by 
the Crown as its representatives and agents, their duty being 
to control, within their respective departments, not only the 
local governors (who now became military governors only), 
but also the municipalities and provincial Parliaments. This 
institution, as was evident at the time, and as subsequent 

338 



LOUIS XIII 

events even more conclusively proved, was Richelieu's greatest 
single achievement in his policy of centralization.^ 

Richelieu's Foreign Policy 

We have now to turn from Richelieu's domestic to his foreign 
policy. This subject is unfortunately so entangled with the 
complicated European movements of the time that it would be 
impossible to deal with it here in detail without an unwarrant- 
able digression into general history. It must therefore suffice 
to indicate the broad lines of the efforts which he directed 
toward his one great end — the securing for France of the first 
place among the nations. 

That object entailed, as we have seen, a struggle with Spain 
and Austria. Devout Catholic and prince of the Church though 
he was, he was thus driven by diplomatic necessities, and 
purely as a matter of political calculation, to make common 
cause with the Protestant Powers, and he began with England 
(with what ill-success has already become apparent) and with 
the Netherlands. His first war was also undertaken in defence 
of a Protestant people. The Catholic inhabitants of the little 
Protestant republic of the Orisons had, at the instigation of 
Spain, revolted against their heretical rulers. The Spaniards 
had thereupon seized the Valtelline valley, which was of great 
strategical importance to them as the principal means of 
communication between their Italian provinces and Austria. 
Richelieu then intervened on behalf of the Orisons, cleared 
the country of Spanish and papal troops, and restored the 
Valtelline to the confederacy. Troubles with the Hugue- 
nots and the discontent of the Ultramontanes prevented him, 
however, from turning this victory to its full account, and 
he was obliged for the moment to make peace with Spain 
(1626). 

Three years later hostilities were renewed over the question 
of the Mantuan succession. The Duke of Mantua and Mont- 
ferrat had died leaving no near kin, and his next heir was a 

^ This system of intendants was not actually originated by Richelieu, but 
he revived it and made it permanent and effective. 

339 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

French subject, the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne. 
Spain, the dominating Power in Italy, was, however, deter- 
mined that the duchy should not pass into French hands, 
and therefore appealed to the Emperor Ferdinand II to inter- 
fere, at the same time setting up a rival claimant. This gave 
Richelieu ground to take the field in Nevers' support. Twice 
he crossed the Alps in personal command of the French armies 
(1629, 1630), crushed the Duke of Savoys who had joined 
Spain, and was soon in a position to impose terms, which 
included the recognition of Nevers and the cession to France 
of the fortified town of Pinerolo. France thus established a 
centre of influence in Italy and obtained possession of an 
important key to the Alpine passes. In this triumph of his 
Italian policy Spain and Austria rightly saw a menace to 
their united power. Hence the continued activity of Spain 
in fomenting disturbances among the French nobles with a 
view to embarrassing Richelieu in the pursuit of his foreign 
ambitions. 

Meanwhile the Thirty Years' War was running its disastrous 
course. In origin the result of religious dissensions among the 
German princes and their subjects, this great struggle or series 
of struggles had soon become political and dynastic, and had 
gradually spread until nearly all the rival Powers of Europe 
were drawn into it. Naturally Richelieu kept a vigilant eye 
upon every fresh development of a conflict which was certain 
in the upshot to alter fundamentally the European system ; 
but his difficulties with the Huguenots compelled him for the 
time being to remain a spectator. On the whole fortune 
favoured the Catholic side, and when Wallenstein swept over 
Northern Germany his successes brought within measurable 
distance of realization the great ambition of the Austrian 
Hapsburgs — ^the establishment of a solid Germanic empire, 
with the Baltic ports as an outlet to the sea. At this critical 
juncture Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden stepped in as the 
champion of the Protestants against the Catholic League 
(1630), and Richelieu at once agreed to support him with 
large subsidies. But it was not until the noble * Snow King ' 

340 



LOUIS XIII 

had closed his brief but glorious career on the field of Iviitzen 
(1632) that Richelieu began to see his way clear to decisive 
action. Even then he continued for some time to intrigue 
with the Protestant princes against the Emperor and his 
auxiliaries, meanwhile strengthening his own position by im- 
portant alliances and carefully organizing the French army. 
At length in 1633 he determined to enter the conflict openty, 
and declared war against Spain, which throughout had been 
the mainstay of the Imperial and Austrian cause. At this 
point, therefore, the long war took yet another turn ; it ceased 
to be even in name a war for the defence of Protestantism in 
Germany, and became a war waged by France for her own 
aggrandizement against the two branches of the house of 
Hapsburg. At the outset things went ill with France ; at 
one time the Spanish penetrated into Picardy, seized Corbie, 
and even threatened Paris itself. But despite the general 
alarm Richelieu never lost his head or his courage, and in 
1638 the tide began to turn. Spain, badly beaten in many 
directions, was further crippled by revolts of the Catalans 
and the Portuguese ; the weakness of Spain wrecked the 
hopes of Austria ; and in his closing years the great minister 
had the satisfaction of witnessing a succession of brilliant 
French triumphs by which the power of his enemies was 
paralysed, though by no means completely broken. Perhaps 
his greatest single victory was the conquest of Alsace,^ the 
possession of which, together with that of I/orraine, carried 
the boundaries of France to the natural frontier of the Rhine 
and destroyed the coherence of the Imperial states. Though 
he died before the results of his policy could be consolidated, 
he left his country everywhere victorious. His successors had 
only to reap where he had sown. 

Results of Richelieu's Administration 

In a remarkable document, Le Testament politique, the guid- 
ing principles of Richelieu's administration are thus succinctly 

^ Definitely ceded to France six years after his death by the Treaty of 
Westphalia. See post, p. 350. 

341 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

outlined either by Richelieu himself or perhaps by some one 
writing on his behalf : ^ 

" When Your Majesty decided to give me a place in your 
councils the Huguenots divided the State with you ; the 
nobles conducted themselves as if they were not your subjects, 
and the more powerful governors of provinces as if they were 
sovereigns in their own right. Foreign alliances were despised, i 
private interests preferred to public ; in a word, the dignity of 
Your Majesty was so degraded and different from what it 
should be that it was almost impossible to recognize it. I 
promised Your Majesty to use all my industry and power to 
ruin the Huguenot party, lower the pride of the nobles, lead 
all subjects to their duty, and restore the country's name among 
foreign nations." 

We are now in a position to realize how far these promises 
had been redeemed. A few words must, however, be added 
on the results of Richelieu's administration in general. 

His paramount object was, as we have seen, the complete 
concentration of authority in the Crown. This was of course 
no innovation. Centralizing tendencies had already been 
increasingly apparent in the evolution of the French Govern- 
ment from Philippe IV's time to I^ouis XI's and from lyouis XI's 
to Francois I's ; and though they had been interrupted by 
the Wars of Religion and the anarchy which followed, they 
had reappeared with the restoration of internal peace under 
Henri IV. For several centuries, indeed, as our narrative 
has shown, the political history of France had largely been 
the history of a struggle for supremacy between the monarchy 
and the disruptive forces of feudalism ; in this struggle the 
monarchy had slowly gained ground ; and since the conditions 

* The authenticity of this document (first published at Amsterdam in 
1688) has been hotly debated. Voltaire pronoimced it the work of a mere 
compiler, and this view has been accepted, with modifications, by many 
more recent historians. Henri Martin, on the other hand, declared it to be 
the genuine production of the Cardinal, and many experts, without going 
quite so far as this, regard it as having been inspired by him. The passage 
quoted in the text may in any event be used as a convenient summary, since 
it defines what were Richelieu's actual aims. 

342 



LOUIS XIII 

of the country prevented the emergence of that constitutional 
type of government which meanwhile had been gradually 
developing in England, the power lost by the nobles was 
absorbed by the throne, and the result was necessarily a 
movement toward autocracy. Richelieu only carried that 
movement a stage farther, but by his success he practically 
completed the transformation of feudal monarchy into absolute 
monarchy. His fundamental principle was the divine right 
of kings, " the living images of God " — that principle which 
the Stuarts had vainly sought to impose on the English people, 
and which, while he was firmly establishing it in France, the 
English people were preparing once and for all to reject. So 
thoroughly was this conception of kingship now formulated 
that lyouis XIII was able to write : "I owe no account of 
my actions or the administration of my State save to God 
alone." There was but one step from this to his son's " L'fitat, 
c'est moi." 

The destruction of the political power of the Huguenots 
and the subjugation of the nobility were aspects of Richelieu's 
policy which were entirely beneficial, for the most urgent 
danger of the time was still the danger of internal disorder 
and the first requirement the firm control of all the elements 
which stood in the way of national unity. Many of his other 
measures, on the contrary, can be regarded only with the 
strongest disapproval. In his determination to allow no 
division of authority he showed himself the uncompromising 
enemy of all such local liberties as still survived in various 
parts of the country, and especially of the provincial states. 
He crushed out all vestiges of constitutional government, and 
suppressed or weakened every institution which might con- 
ceivably become an agent of public opinion. Though at the 
beginning of his ministry he twice summoned an Assembly of 
Notables, he never again made even this pretence of seeking 
either the counsel or the support of the nation, and from first 
to last he deliberately ignored the States-General. He expressly 
forbade the Parliament of Paris to take any cognizance of 
public affairs unless specially invited to do so by the Kin' 

343 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

or to make any protest against any edict of the Government. 
He held the press under the severest censorship. Worst of 
all, he even tanipered with the administration of justice, setting 
aside the Supreme Court and appointing extraordinary com- 
missions — 'the mere creatures of arbitrary power — ^for the trial 
of every important political offender. By such measures he 
annihilated the political liberties of the country. 

It has been argued that Richelieu is not t6 be held respon- 
sible for the abuses of absolute government during the later 
Bourbon period. Perhaps not. It is certain that he would 
have disapproved of them. But he opened the way for them, 
none the less. His own ideal was despotism for the public 
good. He did not realize that in the very nature of things 
despotism must sooner or later turn to public evil. 

Nor were his own labours in internal administration by 
any means wholly satisfactory. A strong army and navy 
were essential to the success of his policy, and he strengthened 
and ^reorganized the one and practically created the other. 
These were obvious gains. He also endeavoured in various 
ways to develop colonial enterprise, extend foreign commerce, 
and foster domestic industry. But the period of his ministry 
was not one of general prosperity — in part, indeed, because 
it was a period of almost continuous war, but in part also 
because his policy overwhelmed the people with taxation and 
kept them poor. As a financier he was a failure. He attacked, 
it is true, the iniquities of tax-farming. But he left untouched 
the most radical evil in the financial system— that which arose 
from the fact 'that as the privileged classes were practically 
exempted from the taille the burden of taxation fell upon the 
shoulders of those who were least able to bear it.^ 

Richelieu's Character 

Yet all allowances made, and whatever may be our own 
views of the ends to which his energies were directed, RicheHeu 

1 In 1634 he made an attempt to reduce the number of exemptions. But 
so great was the storm of opposition which the effort aroused that even 'he 
had to bow before it, and the edict remained a dead letter. 

344 



LOUIS XIII 

keeps his place, by the common consent alike of those who 
approve and of those who condemn his policy, among the great 
statesmen of France and of the world, and, as history clearly 
records, he left an impress upon his country which not even 
the Revolution was completely to efface. But what now of 
the man himself ? Undoubtedly the chief feature of his singu- 
larly complex personal character was, if the paradox may be 
allowed, his utter impersonality. Vain and ostentatious he 
certainly was, fond of power and display, and, in a superficial 
view, inordinately ambitious. Yet there was nothing vulgar 
about his ambition, for it aimed at the aggrandizement, not 
of himself, but of France. He sank himself entirely in the 
State ; he identified himself with its interests ; he made its 
welfare his own. " I pray God to condemn me," he said on 
his death-bed, and we may be sure with absolute sincerity, 
" if I have had any other object than that of the welfare of 
God and of the State." In seeking to attain this object he 
did not scruple to resort to tortuous intrigue and the base arts 
of Machiavellian cunning, but these, like his pitiless cruelty, 
he held to be justified as means to his great end. We do not, 
of course, excuse him on these points. But there are on the 
other hand aspects of his character which we may cordially 
admire — his steadiness and tenacity of purpose, his patience 
his immense capacity for work, and above all his iron resolu- 
tion and courage, A man of poor physique and fragile health, 
nearly always ailing and often ill, dependent for his power 
upon a king constitutionally as feeble as himself, and sur- 
rounded by enemies who watched, lynx-eyed, for every chance 
to compass his ruin, he none the less pursued without flinching 
his narrow and perilous way. 

Richelieu died on December 4, 1642. Four years before 
he had lost his one friend and confidant. Father Joseph, popu- 
larly known as " I'l^minence Grise." His inveterate enemy, 
Marie de Medicis, died at Cologne, forsaken and poor, on the 
3rd of the previous July. His royal master, in whose name 
he had ruled, survived him barely six months, dying on May 14, 
1643. 

345 



CHAPTER IV 

LOUIS XIV . 

I. THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAZARIN 

I 643-1661 

LOUIS XIII's eldest son, also Ivouis, was not yet five 
years old when his father died, and thus the country 
was again faced by the dangers of an interregnum. 
The late sovereign by his will had entrusted the kingdom to 
Anne of Austria and a Council of Regency by which her acts 
were to be controlled. But Anne at once took steps to have 
this provision amended. Following the example of Marie de 
Medicis in similar circumstances, she appealed to the Parlia- 
ment of Paris, and the Parliament, glad of the opportunity 
of once more asserting itself, forthwith annulled the Council 
and proclaimed her Regent with full powers to act according 
to her own discretion. The first use which she made of her 
authority was, however, an unpleasant surprise to the enemies 
of the dead Cardinal. She appointed as her chief minister 
Cardinal Mazarin, whom the dying Richelieu had recommended 
to lyouis XIII as his successor. 

Cardinal Mazarin 

Jules Mazarin (whose name was originally Giulio Mazarini) 
came of a Sicilian family and was born at Piscina, in the 
Abruzzi, in 1602. He was educated under the Jesuits in 
Rome and Spain, and served for a time in the papal army ; 
but he had already begun to attract attention by his political 
abilities when during the negotiations which followed the 
French wars in Italy he made the acquaintance of Richelieu. 
The great statesman was quick to recognize the young Italian's 

34<^ 



LOUIS XIV 

talents, and soon began to employ him in French interests in 
important diplomatic affairs. In 1639 ^^ became a French 
subject, and was henceforth Richelieu's right-hand man ; and 
in 1 64 1, though he had never advanced beyond minor orders, 
he was, through Richelieu's influence, raised to the dignity of 
cardinal. It was now upon the shoulders of this naturalized 
foreigner, who never learned to speak with a perfect accent 
the language of his adopted country, that Richelieu's mantle 
fell. The complete ascendancy which he had already obtained 
over the mind of the Regent ^ made him in effect the master 
of the destinies of France. 

But though, as we shall see, Mazarin was the faithful follower 
of Richelieu in both foreign and domestic policy, his personal 
character was strikingly different from that of his great pre- 
decessor. Sphinx-like, inscrutable, cold and domineering, 
Richelieu had been content to live in splendid isolation, holding 
with Machiavelli that it is better for a ruler to be feared than 
to be loved. Mazarin courted popularity, and possessed all 
the qualities by which in ordinary circumstances it may be 
assured, for he was supple, smooth-tongued, affable, insidious, 
quick to adapt himself to his surroundings, ready at all times 
to be all things to all men. Richelieu had given grave offence 
by the formidable state which he maintained, his retinue of 
servants, his private guard. Mazarin, though a man of luxu- 
rious and extravagant tastes, sought at the outset to allay 
antagonism by an elaborate show of simplicity, appearing in 
the streets with only a couple of lackeys behind his carriage.^ 

^ This ascendancy and the constancy with which Anne supported her 
minister against his many enemies have been held to point to a personal 
relationship of the closest kind between them. That she gave him her love 
seems certain ; but the existence of a secret marriage, though not impossible, 
cannot be proved. It must be remembered that Mazarin, though a cardinal, 
was not a fully ordained priest ; he was only in deacon's orders, and could 
therefore legally marry. See Cheruel's Histoire de France pendant la Minorite 
de Louis XI V and Histoire de France sous le Ministere de Mazarin ; Memoires 
du Cardinal de Retz, edition of 1843, Appendix ; and, for a summary of 
evidence, Hanotaux' essay " lya Minorite de l/ouis XIV," in his Etudes 
historiques sur le XV le et le XV He Siede en France. 

* Pe Retz, Memoires, 

347 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

His ingratiating manners made him in particular a great 
favourite with women, who had always regarded the terrible 
Cardinal with hatred and distrust. But such attractions 
were merely superficial. Whatever his defects, Richelieu had 
throughout his career been guided by consideration of what 
he deemed to be for the public weal. Mazarin was self-seeking 
and rapacious. He rendered great services to France, it is 
true, especially in diplomacy, for which he had an extraordinary 
genius. But while he worked for the country he worked no 
less for his own ambitions, and he never subordinated personal 
interests to those of the State. 

Close of the Thirty Years' War 

Richelieu, as we have seen, left France everywhere victorious. 
But his death put fresh heart into his enemies, who at once 
resumed the offensive. In the spring of 1643 a Spanish army, 
26,000 strong, crossed the frontier from the Netherlands 
inta Champagne and invested Rocroi, twenty-four miles from 
Sedan. Their design was to advance thence upon Paris, and 
in this they seemed to have an excellent chance of success, 
for the French force which opposed them was inferior in 
numbers and was commanded by an inexperienced youth of 
one-and-twenty, Tyouis, Duke of Bnghien, afterward famous 
as ' le Grand Conde.' ^ But, as Voltaire said, the young 
soldier " etait ne general," and this first engagement established 
his fame as a military genius of the highest qualities. Against 
the judgment of his older advisers he determined to throw 
himself against the close formations of the enemy, and by a 
combination of skilful manoeuvring and impetuous daring he 
broke down their resistance and ended by turning their defeat 
into a rout (May 19, 1643). This brilliant victor^^ not only 
aroused immense enthusiasm in Paris, but also made a profound 
impression throughout Europe. For more than a century the 
Spanish infantry had been deemed all but invincible, but their 

* He became Prince of Cond6 in 1646, on the death of his father, who, as 
we remember, had figured conspicuously in the troubles of the preceding 
reign. 

348 





.. 


'ik,^ 




.r 




i!*mO"''- 


i"' 





52. Thk Grkat Conde: 



53, Marshai, Turennk 





54 Cardinai< Mazarin 



55. Cardinai, de Rktz 348 



LOUIS XIV 

traditional prestige was now destroyed, and their glory passed 
to French arms. Conde's next achievements, the capture of 
Thionville (Diedenhofen), in I^orraine, after a seven weeks' 
siege (August 1643), and that of Sierck, which quickty followed 
(September) j^ gave the French possession of two important 
strategical points on the Moselle. 

On the Rhine, however, where the French commanders were 
overmatched by the Bavarian generals, John of Werth and 
Baron Mercy, these successes were counterbalanced by serious 
reverses. The chief command of the campaign in this field 
was thereupon given to another young general of great distinc- 
tion, Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, who, 
though only thirty-two, had already won his laurels in the 
Thirty Years' War and had just been rewarded with a marshal's 
baton for his brilliant feat in wresting Roussillon from Spain. 
Turenne and Bnghien were destined to become the great 
military rivals of their time, and it is therefore interesting to 
note the fundamental contrast, physical and moral, between 
them : the one thick-set, broad-shouldered, deliberate in speech, 
cautious in action ; the other lean, emaciated, with the face 
of a bird of prey, energetic, fiery, dashing. Turenne's move- 
ments were hampered by the insufficiency of his forces, and he 
was powerless to prevent the capture of Freiburg, in Breisgau, 
and the advance of Mercy into Alsace. Then Bnghien once 
more came upon the scene and took over the supreme command. 
A fierce three days' battle — ^the bloodiest of the whole war — 
was fought outside Freiburg (August 1644), but though Mercy 
was obliged to retreat, the French were too exhausted to 
follow up their success. Nor was their victory at Nordlingen 
a year later (August 1645) much more decisive, though the 
death of Mercy on the field removed one of their most redoubt- 
able opponents. But in the campaign of 1646-48 Turenne, 
with the co-operation of the Swedish general Wrangel, overran 
and conquered Bavaria ; and Bnghien (now Prince of Conde) 
captured Dunkerque (1646), and, after suffering his first defeat 
at lyerida, in Catalonia, returned north and routed the Imperial 
forces at I^ens (August 1648). 

349 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

By this^time, however, the long and terrible war was at 
last nearing its close. For some years there had been talk of 
peace, and as early as 1643 a conference of ambassadors was 
convened in two sections in the Westphalian cities of Osnabriick 
and Miinster. But the proceedings were protracted on account 
of the extreme complexity of the conflicting interests to be 
adjusted, and it was not till October 1648 that the Treaty of 
Westphalia was signed, Spain in the meantime having with- 
drawn from the negotiations. With the details of this treaty 
in its European aspects we are not, of course, concerned. It 
is enough to say that the religious quarrel in Germany was 
settled and the political liberties of the Protestants secured ; 
that the supremacy of Austria was destroyed and the Empire 
reduced to a loose confederation of miscellaneous states ; and 
that France retained all her conquests, including Alsace, and 
obtained a formal recognition of her right to the three bishoprics 
of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.^ But while the power of Austria 
was now finally broken, the house of Bourbon had still its 
second enemy to vanquish before its pre-eminence in Europe 
could be assured, for the treaty left the relations of France 
and Spain untouched. 

Discontent of the Nobles 

While Mazarin had been thus vigorously pursuing the foreign 
policy of Richelieu to a successful issue there was at home a 
revival of the internal disorders which had marked the minority 
of lyouis XIII. Richelieu's death had encouraged not only 
Spain, but also the domestic enemies of the central Government. 
Still restive under the severely repressive regime which he had 
established, the ambitious nobility saw, as they believed, in 
the weakness of the Regency a favourable opportunity to 
undo his work and recover at least a portion of the power 
of which they had been deprived. 

The first flurry of discontent was that of a handful of aris- 
tocratic reactionaries ironically nicknamed ' the Importants,' 

^ These had actually been French since the days of Henri II. See ante, 
p. 242. ^ 



LOUIS XIV 

prominent among whom were the Bishop of Beauvais (described 
by the pungent de Retz as *' more of an idiot than any idiot 
of your acquaintance "), Cesar, Duke of Vendome, and his 
two sons, the Dukes of Beaufort and Mercoeur, the famous 
lya Rochefoucauld, Bassompierre (now released from the 
Bastille), the beautiful and witty Duchess of Chevreuse (a 
friend of the Queen-Mother, whom I^ouis XIII had banished 
from the Court), and two other almost equally notorious and 
unscrupulous ladies, the Duke of Enghien's sister, the Duchess 
of lyongueville, and the Duchess of Montbazon. The object 
of this cabal was to obtain control of the Government by the 
overthrow — if necessary, the assassination — of Mazarin. But 
their machinations were discovered, Anne acted with unex- 
pected decision, the conspirators were imprisoned or exiled, 
and the plot came to a sudden and ignominious end (September 

1643)- 
A mere Court intrigue of this kind was of no great importance. 

But before long the Government had to face other dangers 

far more serious alike in their origin and in their bearings. 

Richelieu had left as a heritage to his successor an enormous 

debt, a ruinous system of taxation, and widespread discontent. 

The problem of providing the sinews of an expensive war was 

one w^hich in the circumstances would have been formidable 

enough for any minister, but it was further complicated in 

Mazarin's case by the necessity of finding money and still 

more money to maintain the Regent's extravagances and (for 

in this matter he followed in the footsteps of Henri IV) to buy 

the support of the greedy nobles. The utmost confusion 

prevailed in the finances of the country ; the Treasury was 

empty ; the revenue for the next three years had been swallowed 

up in advance ; the pay of the soldiers and the salaries of the 

officers of State were falling more and more into arrear, and 

things were steadity going from bad to worse. Admirable as 

a diplomatist, Mazarin was very weak as a financier, and 

showed himself utterly incapable of grappling with so desperate 

a situation. He had appointed as his Controller-General a 

countryman of his own, a certain Michel Particelli,Sieur d'fimery, 

351 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

who years before, it was alleged, had been condemned as a 
fraudulent bankrupt, and whom de Retz describes, possibly 
with a touch of exaggeration, as *' the most corrupt spirit of 
his age." At his wits' end for money, this clever but rascally 
agent of the chief minister had recourse to all sorts of extra- 
ordinary devices. He invented fresh imposts of particularly 
burdensome kinds ; revived ordinances which had long fallen 
into oblivion simply that he might collect fines for their infrac- 
tion ; created absurd offices which he sold to the highest 
bidders ; peddled patents of nobility ; raised loans at exorbi- 
tant rates of interest. To justify his organized system of 
extortion he appealed, of course, to the urgent needs of the 
State. Unfortunately a considerable part of the proceeds of 
his plunder, instead of replenishing the national coffer, went 
straight into his own pockets and those of his innumerable 
underlings and parasites. Mazarin himself cannot be held 
guilty of actual complicity in these abuses, but he was indirectly 
responsible for the acts of his subordinates, and we cannot 
wonder that the country at large was not keen to distinguish 
between the minister and his agent. The people of Paris and 
other great cities were furious at seeing themselves exploited 
and despoiled by foreign adventurers, while throughout the 
provinces the condition of the peasantry was one of indescrib- 
able and ever-increasing misery. The whole country was 
thus ripe for revolt, and a state of things existed out of which, 
as Mazarin warned the Regent, capital could easily be made 
by those who for any reason of their own were desirous of 
weakening the royal authority. 

The First Fronde 

The struggle of the Government with the forces of insubor- 
dination began with what is known as the First, or Parlia- 
mentary, Fronde.^ Trouble arose as early as 1644 over the 

^ The fronde was the sling used by the boys of Paris in the street-fighting 
in which they then freely indulged. The term frondeur was first applied to 
the opponents of the Court by some orator during the course of a debate in 
the Parliament. It stuck, and henceforth fronde and frondeurs were the 
accepted names of the anti-royalist faction and its adherents. 



LOUIS XIV 

resistance of the Parliament of Paris to certain taxes which 
iSmery sought to impose — the taxe du toise, which was to be 
levied on houses in the suburbs, and the taxe des aises, which 
was designed to tap the incomes of the wealthier classes. 
Though the- dispute was settled for a time and nothing of 
importance happened immediately thereafter, friction con- 
tinued between the contending parties, and in 1648 matters 
came to a head. The crisis was brought about by a fresh 
demand of the Government that the Parliament should register 
various new financial edicts. The Parliament refused ; the 
Government persisted ; and then the Parliament took the 
bold step of convening an assembly composed of representatives 
of its own body and of other so-called ' Sovereign Courts ' — 
the Grand Conseil, the Chambre des Comptes, and the Cour 
des Aides — ^to deliberate upon the situation. Despite the 
attempt of the Government to prevent it, the conference met 
in May in the Hall of St I^ouis in the Palace of Justice. 

The position of the Parliament of Paris must be carefully 
considered. The stand which it made against the despotism 
of the Court was, it may be conceded, in part the result of 
genuine public spirit, and it was certainly justifiable. Our 
sympathies, therefore, will naturally be with it in its battle 
for constitutional rights. Yet it was rather by accident than 
of set purpose that its own struggle with the Crown corre- 
sponded with the real interests of the nation. For while some 
of its members, notably its president, the upright and noble- 
minded Mole, were actuated by sentiments of real patriotism, 
the Parliament as a whole was scarcely less selfish than the 
aristocracy, and like the aristocracy was primarily concerned 
about its own privileges. Though it was undoubtedly en- 
couraged by the example of the lyong Parliament of England, 
it must always be remembered that it had no resemblance to 
that assembly save only in name, and that from the point 
of view of statesmanship the actions of the two bodies are in 
no way comparable. It was not in any sense a representative 
or democratic institution. It was simply a close corporation 
of magistrates and lawyers, and as such it was every whit as 

z 353 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

jealous of the popular element in the country as it was suspicious 
of the Crown. However admirable its protest against oppres- 
sion, however excellent some of its recommendations, its 
inspiring motive was the desire to usurp the functions which 
had formerly belonged to the now abandoned States-General 
and to make itself the chief power in the realm. 

The Conference of St lyouis undertook to consider at large 
the condition of the kingdom and to draw up a kind of 
constitution, which the Parliament transmitted to the Court 
for the royal sanction. The proposals made included, among 
many matters of minor importance, the control of taxation 
by the Parliament, the abolition of the provincial intendants, 
and the security of the liberty of the subject by the aboli- 
tion of extraordinary tribunals and of arbitrary imprisonment 
under the obnoxious lettres de cachet. Such claims, as Mazarin 
p^ceived, struck at the absolute authority of the Crown* 
None the less he hesitated to enter into open conflict with a 
foe whose strength he fully appreciated, though the Queen- 
Mother did not, and it was only after he had vainly tried the 
policy of pacification by concession that he yielded to her 
insistent demand for drastic measures. The moment seemed 
favourable, for report had just reached the capital of Conde's 
triumph at I^ens, and this, Mazarin calculated, would increase 
the prestige of the Government and tend to enlist popular 
feeling on its side. Secret orders were accordingly issued for 
the arrest of three members of the Parliament — Charton, 
Blancmesnil, and Broussel — ^who had made themselves specially 
conspicuous by their opposition to the Court, and on August 26, 
immediately after a solemn Mass in Notre-Dame in celebra- 
tion of the victory, the plan was promptly carried into effect. 
Warned in time, Charton eluded the guards and escaped ; 
but his two colleagues were seized and hurried away, the 
one to Vincennes, the other to Saint-Germain. But Mazarin 
and the Regent were quickly made aware of their blunder. 
The news of what had happened ran like wildfire through the 
city, where Broussel, though an old man of no particular ability, 
was immensely popular among the middle and lower classes ; 

354 



LOUIS XIV 

shops were soon closed, the principal thoroughfares were 
barricaded, and excited crowds surged through the streets 
shouting " Broussel et liberte ! " Paris, indeed, was on the 
verge of a general rising, and the following day the situation 
became even more alarming when it was known that the 
Regent had refused to listen to a petition of the Parliament 
for the release of the two members. 

At this point a singular figure appeared upon the scene to 
add to the general confusion in the person of ] ean-Fran^ois- 
Paul de Gondi, the coadjutor of his imcle, the Archbishop of 
Paris, and afterward Cardinal de Retz.^ Restless, volatile, 
ambitious, a lover of tumult and the very genius of intrigue, 
this extraordinary young ecclesiastic threw himself into the 
commotion in the hope, of course, of turning it to his own 
ends. He had already been coquetting with the popular 
party. He now first tried to render himself indispensable to 
the Court, and then, having failed in this, resolved to make 
himself master of Paris by placing himself at the head of the 
mob. At the same time the peril of the Government was 
increased by the re-emergence of several influential members 
of the ever-dissatisfied nobility, among them the Prince of 
Conti (Conde's brother), the Dukes of Elbeuf, Bouillon, and 
Beaufort, and the Duchess of lyongueville. With no interest 
whatever in the real questions at issue, and certainly no 
sympathy with any demand for popular rights, these turbulent 
spirits, anxious at any cost to weaken the Government for 
their own advantage, joined hands with the Parliament and 
the disorderly elements in the capital. 

The release of Blancmesnil and Broussel, to which, under 
great pressure from her advisers, Anne finally though most 
reluctantly consented, brought a momentary lull in the storm. 
But, realizing that the danger was by no means over, the 
Regent, as a measure of precaution, removed the Court from 

^ He did not receive the dignity and title of cardinal till 1652, but as a 
matter of convenience we shall here at once call him by his familiar name. 
His Memoires, for which he is still famous, rank as a masterpiece in a kind of 
writing in which French literature is specially rich. 

355 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Paris, first to Rueil and then to Saint-Germain. This step 
was regarded with suspicion by the anti-royahst party, and 
the arrest of two ex-ministers, opponents of Mazarin — ^the 
Marquis of Chateauneuf and the Count of Chavigny — ^provided 
fresh pretext for dispute. But none the less the counsels of 
the more moderate men on one and the other side began to 
prevail, and as a result of protracted negotiations an agreement 
was at last reached. On October 22, 1648, duly two days be- 
fore the promulgation of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Regent 
affixed her signature to a declaration of the Parliament incor- 
porating most of the demands which had been made in respect 
of taxation and the right of the subject to constitutional trial. 
There could, however, be no stability in such a peace. The 
Parliament was encouraged by its victory to adopt a more 
aggressive attitude toward the Government ; Mazarin and 
th^ Regent, though they had been forced to yield, had done 
so only as a matter of policy and with the secret determina- 
tion* of taking the first opportunity to recover the ground 
they had lost ; while the intriguing nobles, with de Retz at 
their head, were resolved for their own purposes to keep the 
spirit of tumult alive. In these circumstances a fresh outbreak 
of hostilities could not long be deferred. The Parliament 
soon had reason to complain that the provisions of the declara- 
tion of Saint-Germain were not being carried out ; the Court 
again sought safety in flight ; royal troops were concentrated 
outside the capital, and the city hastily made ready for a siege. 
In January 1649 civil war began in earnest. The provincial 
Parliaments and many of the leading cities throughout the 
country identified themselves with the anti-royalist cause, 
and popular risings occurred in Normandy and Provence. 
But Paris was the centre of the storm. The incapable Prince 
of Conti was appointed generalissimo of the city's forces, with 
the Duke of Blbeuf as his lieutenant ; but de Retz, whose 
energy was tireless, and Beaufort, whose popularity with the 
mob had gained for him the dubious title of ' le Roi des Halles,' 
were the real leaders of the people. The royal army was placed 
under the command of the Great Conde himself. In the unequal 
356 



LOUIS XIV 

conflict which ensued the advantage was of course entirely 
on one side. There were a number of skirmishes, in which 
the undiscipHned Parisians quickly gave way before the well- 
seasoned enemy, and one engagement of some importance — 
that of Charenton (February 1649) — ^^ which Conde scored an 
easy victory. These reverses and the menace of famine had 
a depressing effect upon the mercurial temper of the popidace. 
At the same time dissensions arose, as was inevitable, between 
the Parliament and its princely allies. The nobles had joined 
the revolt against the Government entirely for the benefit 
which they hoped to reap from it for themselves, and their 
support had at once deprived it of all its cor.vStitutional and 
democratic character and turned it into a vulgar and petty 
struggle for personal ends. This fact was now perceived by 
the more patriotic members of the Parliamentary party, who 
thereupon began to seek for some compromise with the Govern- 
ment which would enable them to extricate themselves from 
the false position into which they had been led. I^argely 
through the instrumentality of Mole, who at that critical 
juncture " displayed an invulnerable firmness and a presence 
of mind almost superhuman," ^ terms were arranged with 
the Court, and by the Treaty of Rueil (March 1649) ^ limited 
measure of political power was secured by the Parliament, 
together with the promise of various financial reforms. At 
one point, however, the Parliament was badly beaten. It 
had demanded the dismissal of Mazarin, and Mazarin kept 
his place. 

The Second Fronde 

Such was the end of the First Fronde. The Second Fronde — 
the Fronde of the Nobles — which arose almost immediately 
out of its ashes, was very different in purpose and spirit. This 
was, indeed, at bottom merely a struggle for mastery between 
the nobles and Mazarin. It is true that, as Voltaire said, 
" the public good was in everybody's mouth," ^ but the reckless 

1 De Retz, Memoires, I/ivre I,, p. 431. 
' L$ Siecle de Louis XIV, chap. iv. 

357 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

egotism of the leaders was so flagrant that the pretence of 
patriotism deceived nobody. Moreover, the movement was 
as frivolous as it was selfish. From first to last it was swayed 
by trivial ambitions, broken up into contentious factions, 
complicated by personal jealousies and squabbles, corrupted 
by the influence of dissolute women, entangled in love intrigues 
which fill many pages in the memoirs of the time but which 
need not be recounted here. Even the more outstanding 
figures on the stage — even men like Conde and Turenne, whose 
military genius and valour were beyond dispute — showed 
themselves almost as deficient in political wisdom and as 
inconstant and untrustworthy as the most contemptible of 
their followers, while other prominent rebels — Conti, Bouillon, 
Beaufort, and the rest — were creatures of poor intelligence 
and giddy temper, who were actuated by no higher motive 
th^n that of getting whatever they could for themselves out 
of the general welter of the hour. Hence, though the New 
Fronde kept the whole country in a state of turmoil for upward 
of three years, it has little historical importance, and a brief 
treatment of it here will therefore suffice. 

The Treaty of Rueil had scarcely been signed before friction 
arose between Conde and Mazarin. The former's military 
triumphs had greatly increased his constitutional pride and 
arrogance, which were further stimulated by the part he had 
played in recent events as the protector of the Court, and he 
now demanded extravagant rewards for himself, his relatives, 
and the young lords — ^the petits-mattres as they were called — 
who sided with him. For a time Mazarin exerted all his 
cunning to defeat his ambitions by the arts of intrigue, but 
at length the situation became intolerable and he realized 
that his only hope of safety lay in his rival's removal. Conde's 
insolence had meanwhile made him as obnoxious to the Parlia- 
ment and the Old Frondeurs as he was to the Regent, and thus 
the Cardinal felt free to act without fear of the consequences. 
Accordingly, on January i8, 1650, he had Conde arrested, 
together with his brother, Conti, and his brother-in-law, 
lyongueville, and lodged in Vincennes. For the moment Paris 

358 



LOUIS XIV 

rejoiced over the fall of the once idolized *' hero of Rocroi." 
But de Retz, who had been bribed by the promise of a cardinal's 
hat to use his influence with the populace in favour of the 
Crown, now finding that his reward was delayed, went over 
again to the' enemy's camp and began to stir up fresh trouble 
in the capital. The result was a temporary revival of the 
Old Fronde in union with the New. Insurrection had also 
broken out in several provinces, and, what was still more 
serious, Turenne, seduced by the Duchess of I^ongueville, 
with whom he was in love, had formed an alliance with the 
Spaniards and was already threatening Paris (June 1650). 
His defeat at Rethel in December removed this cause for 
alarm. But the feeling in Paris against Mazarin was now 
growing in strength, and when in January 165 1 the Parliament 
petitioned Anne for the liberation of the imprisoned princes 
Mazarin was compelled to yield ; the princes were released ; 
and he himself retired from Paris to Brtihl, near Cologne 
(April 165 1), whence, however, he continued to guide the 
Regent's policy. Conde, who received a warm welcome from 
the Parisians, now determined to use the help of the Old 
Frondeurs to make himself supreme in the State. But violent 
quarrels soon dissolved the unstable coalition of Parliament 
and princes, and Conde himself, having by his outrageous 
egotism and his overbearing demeanour quickly contrived to 
put everybody against him, set out for Guyenne (August 165 1), 
where he raised an army and embarked on civil war. Mazarin 
returned to Paris in December and proceeded to take active 
measures to quash the rebellion, with the invaluable assistance 
of Turenne, who had just deserted the Frondeurs and joined 
the party of the Court. This curious shuffling of the cards 
brought the two former colleagues into opposition, and they 
met in their first engagement at Bleneau, south of the Loire, 
where Turenne only just managed to avert an overwhelming 
disaster to the royalist cause (April 7, 1652). The great aim 
on both sides was now to gain the support of Paris, which 
was torn by the contentions of rival parties. Conde there- 
fore took up his position at Saint-Cloud, whence he entered 

359 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

into negotiations with some of the leaders in the city. But 
Turenne, who meanwhile had defeated a Spanish force at 
fitampes (May 4), hastened to meet him, and a desperate 
battle took place outside the Porte Saint- Antoine, which would 
certainly have ended in Conde's decisive defeat but that at the 
last moment Gaston d'Orleans' daughter, Mile de Montpensier — 
famous as ' la Grande Mademoiselle ' — turned the guns of the 
Bastille upon the royalists and opened the city gates to Conde's 
army. This success of the rebels, however, and the anarchy 
which ensued, greatly strengthened the growing reaction against 
the princes and the desire for the restoration of peace. In 
order to remove all obstacles to the reconciliation of Parlia- 
ment and Court, Mazarin again left Paris (August 1652). The 
young King thereupon entered the capital amid scenes of 
great enthusiasm, and so far as Paris was concerned the Second 
Fronde came to an end. Conde, who had fled into Flanders, 
was in his absence condemned to death ; de Retz was sent 
to Vincennes ; other conspirators, among them ' la Grande 
Mademoiselle,' were exiled ; ten members of the Parliament 
were banished or imprisoned. At the same time the Parliament 
was formally forbidden henceforth to take any part in affairs 
of State, while the provincial intendants, to whom the nobles 
had specially objected, were re-established. Thus the cause 
of autocracy triumphed, and the discomfiture of its antagonists 
was completed by the return of Mazarin (February 1653), more 
secure than ever of his position and power. 

Foreign Affairs during the Fronde 

The civil disturbances caused by the Fronde had naturally 
had a disastrous effect on foreign affairs, and Spain had gradually 
won back most of the places previously acquired by France, 
including Dunkerque, Casale in Italy, and the province of 
Catalonia (1652). With the restoration of internal peace 
Mazarin was able once more to devote himself to the prose- 
cution of the war, though he was sadly hampered by the 
depleted state of the national purse. In 1654 Turenne com- 
pelled Conde, now in command of the Spanish army, to raise 
360 



LOUIS XIV 

the siege of Arras. But in the next two years nothing decisive 
happened, though the French made steady jjrogress in the 
Netherlands, while on the other hand Conde gained a con- 
siderable victory at Valenciennes (July 1656). Meanwhile 
both countries were growing weary of the war, and were 
even bidding against one another for the support of Cromwell, 
whose influence, it was understood, would suffice to turn the 
scale. Here Mazarin's unrivalled diplomatic skill prevailed, and 
in 1655 a commercial treaty was concluded between France 
and England which in 1657 Cromwell was at length induced 
to convert into a military alliance. This settled the issue. 
Six thousand of the famous Ironsides were sent to Flanders 
to co-operate with Turenne ; Dunkerque was besieged ; the 
Spanish army despatched to its relief was completely routed 
at the Battle of the Dunes (June 1658) ; the sea-port capitu- 
lated, and according to compact was handed over to the 
English. Spain, bankrupt, without troops, without allies, was 
powerless to make good these reverses and was driven to sue 
for peace, and the war was closed by the Treaty of the Pyrenees 
(November 1659), ^Y which the Treaty of Westphalia was 
confirmed and France gained further territorial advantages 
along her frontiers. At the same time Conde obtained pardon 
and the governorship of Burgundy, while a marriage was 
arranged between the young King and the Infanta Maria 
Theresa, under conditions to which further reference will have 
to be made in the sequel. The previous year Mazarin had 
formed the League of the Rhine. This was an alliance of 
the Electors of Treves, Mainz, and Cologne, various other 
German princes, and the King of vSweden for the maintenance 
of the Treaty of Westphalia, and it assured the supremacy of 
France in Western Europe. 

These {striking diplomatic successes mark the real end of 
Mazarin's career. He died on March 9, 1661, leaving the 
authority of the Crown firmly established in a country quiet 
at home and victorious abroad. His administration forms the 
prelude to the long period, first of glory, then of decline, which 
we know in history as the Age of lyouis XIV. 

361 



CHAPTER V 

LOUIS XIV 
II. THE ZENITH OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 

1661-1684 

LOUIS XIV was now in his twenty-third year. He had 
attained his majority in 165 1, and had therefore already 
been nominally King nearly ten years. But thus far he 
had given little sign either of desire or of capacity to rule. 
On /the contrary, he Jiad shown himself remarkably submissive 
to his chief minister, whose will he never challenged, and to 
whori;i he had continued to entrust the real government of the 
State. Those about him — ^the Queen-Mother herself, the coun- 
sellors, the lords and ladies of the Court — were therefore entirely 
unprepared for his extraordinary change of front the moment 
Mazarin's death released him from his long tutelage. One 
and all they had come to regard him as a young man who, 
preoccupied with sport and pleasure, would be content to 
enjoy the empty pomp of royalty while he left its responsi- 
bilities to others. To their astonishment he at once made 
clear his determination to take the reins of power firmly into 
his own hands and to be King in fact as well as in name. 
Within twenty-four hours he had given his ministers to under- 
stand that he was their master and that in future not even a 
State paper should be signed without his authority. When 
the Archbishop of Rouen, the president of the Assembly of 
Clergy, reminded him that hitherto he, the Archbishop, had 
looked to the Cardinal for instructions and asked him to whom 
he should now turn, " A moi. Monsieur TArcheveque," was 
lyouis' uncompromising reply. 

There can be little doubt that the civil disturbances of the 
362 



LOUIS XIV 

period of his childhood had helped to implant autocratic ideas 
in his mind, and that such ideas had greatly developed under 
the influence of Mazarin, who in the last years of his life had 
carefully trained him in the ideas of government as conceived 
from the purely absolutist point of view. lyouis was only ten 
when news reached the Court of Conde's victory at L/cns. 
** lyC Parlement sera bien fache," exclaimed the boy-King, 
thereby testifying that he had already been taught to consider 
the Parliament as necessarily a body of rebels. Mazarin had 
also familiarized him with that great instrument of royal 
authority the ' bed of justice/ by which the King was able to 
impose his own will upon the Parliament and to compel it to 
register edicts to which it had previously refused its assent. 
There is a popular story to the effect that when in April 1655 
the Parliament undertook to discuss certain financial decrees, 
Ivouis, who was just starting for the chase, hurried back and 
appeared suddenly in the assembly, booted, spurred, and 
(according to one picturesque version) with a riding-whip in 
his hand, and then and there put a stop to the proceedings. 
The anecdote rests apparently upon rather doubtful founda- 
tions, but it may serve to indicate the young King's despotic 
temper and his attitude toward any semblance of opposition 
to his will. 

Louis' Conception of Absolute Monarchy 

As lyouis XIV' s reign marks the culmination of absolute 
monarchy in France, it is interesting to consider his own ideas 
of kingship as set forth in the Memoires historiques et Instruc- 
tions which he prepared with the help of Paul Pellisson, his 
historiographer,^ for the guidance of his son. A king is God's 
representative and vicegerent on earth. His authority is divine 
because it is vested in him directly by God. No division of 
such authority is possible, nor can it be delegated to others, 

1 Pellisson became ' Historiographe royal' in 1666. Barlier in life he had 
been involved in the downfall of Fouquet (see post, p. 369), and had passed 
five years in the Bastille. A touching story is connected with his captivity : 
that of a spider which became the companion of his solitude, and which he 
taught to eat out of his hand. 

363 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

since it inheres entirely in the person of the sovereign. He is 
therefore responsible to God alone. To him and to him only 
belongs the right to initiate and decide. No one else possesses 
any political power ; the people at large have no part in 
their own government, while the ministers are simply agents 
chosen by the king to execute his will. Parliamentary institu- 
tions in particular must be condemned, because they challenge 
the king's sovereign authority and are a source of perpetual 
disturbance to his realm. No criticism of his acts is to be 
allowed. His subjects owe him unconditional and unqualified 
submission. *' He who has given kings to the world has willed 
that they shall be revered as His lieutenants and has reserved 
to Himself alone the right to examine their conduct. His 
desire is that whoever is -born a subject shall obey with- 
out question [discernmenty Moreover, the king is lord and 
master of the property of his subjects, lay and clerical, as well 
as of their lives, and may dispose of one and the other according 
to his discretion. " Iv'fitat, c'est moi " is thus no empty boast. 
The king is the State, for the State as a political entity and 
organization exists only in him. 

These prerogatives, however, entail corresponding duties. 
The king as God's representative and vicegerent on earth is 
charged with the task of ruling as God would will — that is, 
righteously and justly. If the State merges in him, the welfare 
of the State, and not his own personal interests as viewed 
apart from this, must be the one object of all his thoughts. 
His subjects have no rights, it is true ; but since for this reason 
they are children it should be his highest ambition to act as 
their father. If he is not responsible to men, he must never 
forget his responsibility to God, to whom sooner or later he 
will have to give account of his stewardship. 

These are the high ideals of a benevolent paternalism. In 
considering them on their own merits and without reference 
to the theory of autocracy as such, we must of course make 
ample allowance for the fact that lyouis was naturally anxious 
to present his motives and actions under the best possible light. 
I do not, however, think that his good intentions were entirely 



LOUIS XIV 

pose or that he is to be regarded as a mere hypocrite. We 
shall have severe things to say of his character and conduct 
by and by ; but in common fairness it must be set down here 
to his credit that for something like twenty years he honestly 
did his utmost according to his lights to rule his people wisely 
and well. It was only in his later life, when the political 
influences by which he was surrounded had changed from 
good to evil, when his egotism, fed by the Oriental adulation 
of his worshippers, had swollen to monstrous proportions, 
when vanity and religious fanaticism had combined to distort 
his judgment, and his desire to identify his own interests with 
those of his realm had given place to selfish greed for power 
and glory, that the abuses of absolutism began to appear in 
all their appalling nakedness. But while we must thus be 
careful to distinguish between the first and last stages of his 
long reign, it is still obvious that the worst features of the 
second degenerate stage were but the logical results of a system 
in itself inherently and irremediably vicious. As lyouis him- 
self wrote in a sentence which reveals in a flash the dangers 
inseparable from irresponsible government, " When a man can 
do whatever he wishes, it is difficult for him to wish only 
what is right.*' 

Louis XIV as King 

lyOuis had undoubtedly many of the qualities necessary to 
enable him to play the part of grand rot as he himself conceived 
it. This much we must, I think, admit, however strong our 
antipathy to him may otherwise be. Though his intellectual 
parts were by no means exceptional and though he suffered 
much from his shockingly defective education, his mind was 
alert and vigorous, his judgment sound, his good sense in 
general conspicuous. He had force of character and strength 
of will, and while he lacked entirely the statesmanlike sagacity 
and grasp of Richelieu, he showed a natural capacity for 
business and real talent for administration. He was on the 
whole an excellent judge of men, and his knowledge of human 
nature, though mainly of such perverted human nature as 



HISTORY OF PRANCE 

flourishes best in the artificial atmosphere of a court, was 
remarkable : his well-known saying that by every benefit he 
had conferred he had made one person ungrateful and a hundred 
others discontented is in its penetration and cynicism worthy 
of La Rochefoucauld. He was singularly free from the capri- 
ciousness which is commonly associated with arbitrary power, 
and was always completely master of himself : the hostile 
Saint-Simon is our authority for the statement that throughout 
his reign of more than seventy years he lost his temper only 
four or five times. He had also a rare power of work, and 
his industry was not the least admirable of his characteristics. 
His mother professed to be highly amused by the ardour with 
which at the outset he threw himself into the task of govern- 
ment, and thought that the hot fit would soon pass. She 
knew little of his tenacity of purpose. For many years he 
regularly spent eight hours a day over affairs of State. 

Such were some of the more solid attributes which ministered 
to Ms success. There were others of a less substantial kind 
which counted enormously in the power which he early gained 
and long kept over the imaginations of men. It may be 
questioned whether any sovereign was ever so obviously born 
to the purple as lyouis XIV. Tall, finely built, handsome, 
noble of bearing, carrying an air of majesty into even the 
simplest actions, with an elegance of manners which was 
exquisitely compounded of dignity and gracious ease, he was 
indeed in appearance and deportment every inch a king. It 
was of course inevitable that, living as he did from youth to 
old age on the public stage and in the public eye, there should 
be something theatrical about his demeanour ; but, as Voltaire 
said, what would have been a trifle ridiculous in any one else 
seemed perfectly appropriate to him, and we have the unani- 
mous testimony of his contemporaries, unfriendly as well as 
friendly, that he filled to perfection the rdle of chief actor in 
the magnificent Court drama of his time. That his splendour 
was in reality a thing mainly of costume and trappings, that 
he shone almost entirely by the glory that was reflected upon 
him by his surroundings, is of course true. But he still stands 

366 




56. Itoms XIV 



36^ 



LOUIS XIV 

out as the ' Roi Soleil ' — ^the superficially brilliant centre of a 
really brilliant circle. 

Louis' System of Government 

; So much -for I^ouis himself. We may glance next at the 
system of government organized by him, bearing in mind 
as we do so that this system, with a short interruption in the 
opening years of the next reign, remained intact to the end of 
the Old Regime. 

As the sovereign himself is, according to the absolutist 
doctrine, the one and all-sufficient source of authority, he 
acts in theory entirely upon his own initiative and as the 
agent of his own volition. Biit, as I^ouis was astute enough 
to realize, while this may be the abstract principle of abso- 
lutism, the complexities of the modern state make it practi- 
cally impossible for any one man, even though he be divinely 
appointed as God's vicegerent on earth, to conduct single- 
handed the whole work of government. Supreme as he is, 
he needs the advice of experts in the various departments of 
administration, while a certain amount of machinery is indis- 
pensable to him for the execution of his will. While, therefore, 
he never yielded one iota of his pretensions as autocrat, he 
none the less governed with the co-operation of councils and 
ministers, though, as these were of course appointed by and 
were wholly dependent upon him, they in no sense limited 
his power. The most important of the advisory bodies which 
he instituted as his auxiliaries was the Secret or Privy Council, 
known as the Conseil d'JStat or Conseil d'en Haut. This was 
composed of his regular ministers and of such others as he 
might see fit to summon on any occasion to take part in its 
deliberations, and all questions of general policy fell within 
its province. Then, closely connected with this, though sub- 
ordinate to it, were other councils having special provinces 
and functions : the Conseil des Depeches, whose business 
was with internal administration ; the Conseil des Finances ; 
the Conseil des Parties, which was a sort of Cour de Cassation, 
or Court of Appeal. Furthermore, there were a number of 

3^7 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

commissions, also loosely called councils, which were appointed 
to look after particular interests, such as the Conseil de la 
Guerre, the Conseil de Marine, the Conseil du Commerce. Such 
councils were the advisers of the Crown. Its great executive 
agents were the four Secretaries of State — for War, the Navy, 
Foreign Affairs, and the King's Household — together with the 
Chancellor (the head of the magistrature) and the Controller- 
General of Finances ; while beneath these ministers there was 
a vast army of officials belonging to the different departments, 
the most important of whom were the intendants, now growing 
rapidly in power. But it should be noted that from the very 
first lyouis declared his intention of being his oWn Prime Minister. 
A Prime Minister, in his view, was the greatest misfortune 
that could befall a monarch ; even if he did not, like Richelieu 
and Mazarin, usurp the royal authority, there was always a 
dtager that he would come to share it. 

The Finances : Fouquet 

When lyouis thus took personal control of the Government 
the finances of the country were in charge of Nicolas Fouquet, 
who eight years before had been made Superintendent by 
Mazarin. So far from doing anything to bring order out of 
the chaos into which they had fallen, Fouquet by his reck- 
less maladministration and his corrupt practices had greatly 
increased the general confusion, by which he had himself so 
profited that he had amassed a huge fortune out of the public 
funds. He was a man of considerable ability, a friend of 
many persons of intellectual distinction, and a generous patron 
of art and letters ; but his ambition was unbounded ; and 
even when he had been thwarted in his desire to succeed 
Mazarin as the chief pillar of the State he continued his career 
of arrogant self-aggrandizement, apparently blind to the fact 
that in the circumstances pride such as his was the certain 
prelude to a fall. The young King looked with a jealous eye 
upon his haughty subject's ostentatious display of wealth and 
power, and saw in his pretentious device — Quo non ascendant ? 
— a challenge to his own supremacy. He was, moreover, fully 

368 



LOUIS XIV 

aware that Fouquet was guilty of criminal mismanagement 
and the grossest peculation, and this gave him ground to act. 
The blow fell suddenly. In September 1661, a few weeks 
only after he had entertained the King at Vaux on a scale 
of regal magnificence, the Superintendent was arrested and 
lodged in the Bastille. His trial dragged on for three years. 
In the end a majority of his judges pronounced him worthy 
of banishment. This sentence, however, was changed by I^ouis 
himself to one of perpetual imprisonment, and he was immured 
in the fortress of Pinerolo, where he died in 1680. I^ouis' 
conduct in this matter has been condemned as arbitrary and 
vindictive, and it seems certain that it was dictated by personal 
hostility toward his victim. It can scarcely be maintained 
that Fouquet's guilt, obvious as it was, was of so exceptional 
a character as to justify such an aggravation of his fate. He 
was, indeed, part of a rotten system which had long been 
allowed to flourish, and the existence of the system may even 
be held to mitigate to a certain extent his individual respon- 
sibility. If Ivouis is to be exonerated at all from the charge of 
undue harshness, it must be on the supposition that, in making 
Fouquet an example, he intended to announce to all concerned 
and in the plainest possible terms that the system itself was 
now at an end. 

Colbert and his Reforms 

Fouquet's fall was in large measure brought about by the 
influence of another of Mazarin's coadjutors, Jean-Baptiste 
Colbert, a man who holds a high position in the annals of 
lyouis' reign, since it was to his advice and agency that what 
was best in the King's administration was really due. It 
was he who had convinced I^ouis by accumulations of positive 
proof of Fouquet's corruption, and if in part he was moved 
by jealousy and ambition, his disinterested patriotism must 
also be acknowledged. He now stepped into Fouquet's place. 
He did not, indeed, become his successor in name, for lyOuis 
abolished the office of Superintendent ; but he was made 
head of the newly instituted Conseil des Finances, with the 

2 A - 3^9 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

title of Controller-General. A few years later he was also 
entrusted with the charge of the marine, the colo;nies, com- 
merce, and the affairs of the royal household, and thus he 
became actually though not nominally lyouis' counsellor in 
chief. 

Colbert was the son of a merchant of Reims, where he was 
born in 1619, and he was himself trained for a mercantile 
career. Before he was twenty, however, hie secured a post 
under I^e Tellier, then Secretary for War, where he soon 
attracted the attention and won the favour of Mazarin. Hence- 
forth his advancement was rapid, and by the time of the 
Cardinal's death his abilities were fully recognized by I/Ouis 
himself. He was in one important particular an ideal confidant 
for such a king, for I^ouis .preferred to have about him men 
whose rank inspired them with no pretensions beyond those 
of-^their official position, and Colbert never forgot his middle- 
class origin. With his unassuming costume and his familiar 
velvjet bag, indeed, he appeared in the Council in the guise 
rather of a busy clerk than of a powerful minister of State. 
Nor, despite the personal vanity which Mme de Sevigne and 
others laid to his charge, did he ever attempt to give himself 
any of the airs and graces of aristocracy. A strong, silent 
man, distant in manner, and rather difiicult of access, he held 
himself aloof from the luxury and dissipation of the Court, and 
devoted hiniself with prodigious industry and never-flagging 
zeal to the business he had in hand. His administrative talents 
must be judged by the work which he actually accomplished. 
His official character is on the whole deserving of high praise. 
It is true that he had a keen eye for his own interests and that 
he died one of the richest men in France. But he was none 
the less absolutely honest and upright, and his ardour for 
reform and desire for the welfare of the country are incon- 
testable. Unpopular indeed he was, but his unpopularity 
was itself testimony to his rectitude and thoroughness. He 
has been accused of furthering the cause of despotism ; but 
it must not be forgotten that he did all in his power for many 
years to arrest the King's extravagance and guide his ambitions 

370 



LOUIS XIV 

to public ends, and that the decHne of his influence was coin- 
cident with the triumph of the evils he had striven to hold 
in check. 

Colbert began his labours for reform with the finances, now 
in as critical a state as that which had existed immediately 
before Sully's time. The task before him was indeed Hercu- 
lean. He too had to clean Augean stables. An enormous 
national debt had accumulated through long years of war, 
waste, mismanagement, and corruption ; the revenues were 
already swallowed up two years in advance ; each new year 
brought a bigger deficit ; while, owing to the vices of the 
farming system, which again flourished in all its old luxuriance, 
put of eighty-four million livres of actual imposts only thirty- 
two millions found their way into the Treasury. The State 
was, in fact, living from hand to mouth ; order and prevision 
there w^ere none ; no one knew — and it was to the interest of 
the whole army of officials, great and small, that no one should 
know-^the real condition of the Exchequer ; and every fresh 
demand as it arose was met by hasty and extraordinary devices 
for providing money, which in turn only bred fresh abuses. 
Colbert's policy was that of vigorous retrenchment, and if 
his methods were violent and despotic they may be explained 
if they cannot always be justified by reference to the desperate 
difficulties with which he had to grapple. He struck hard, to 
begin with, at the moral evils which had grown apace under 
Fouquet, and compelled the dishonest administrators who, 
with him, had enriched themselves at the country's expense 
to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. By this alone the Treasury 
profited to the tune of many millions of livres. By boldly 
writing down the public securities he forced the nation's 
creditors to accept repayment of loans on a much reduced 
scale, though, as a contemporary writer notes, this strong 
action caused " consternation and despair " among the multi- 
tude of rentiers affected by it.^ He diminished the number 
of sinecure-holders and highly paid officials who had been 
fattening on the funds. One of the worst abuses of the time, 

■^ Olivier I^efevre d'Ormesson, Journal. 

371 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the immunity from direct taxation (taille) enjoyed by the 
privileged classes, he did not, indeed, dare to attack at its 
root ; but he tried in various ways to correct where he could 
not destroy. He deprived a large number of municipal func- 
tionaries of the right of exemption which they had long claimed. 
He revoked all patents of nobility which had been acquired 
b}'' purchase since 1634 and had carried such right of exemp- 
tion with them. He reduced the taille and increased indirect 
taxation (aides) on all sorts of commodities, especially luxuries, 
thus obliging the privileged classes themselves to contribute 
their share to the national purse. He also introduced a more 
equable distribution of the gabelle — the old and always un- 
popular tax arising from the Government monopoly of salt. 
Above all, he introduced order and economy where disorder 
and prodigality had hitherto prevailed. He instituted the 
strictest supervision over the whole financial system, insisted 
upon the proper keeping of accounts by all officials from the 
highest to the lowest, and so reduced the cost of collection 
that, as the revenue returns for the 3^ears from 1661 onward 
show, he increased the national income by many millions apart 
from the imposition of any new tax. 

Colbert's work as Finance Minister was, however, only part 
of his comprehensive programme of reform. He saw clearly 
that the financial stability of the State was inseparably bound 
up with its general prosperity, and he therefore devoted himself 
with characteristic determination to the industrial development 
of the people. On the one hand he revived old industries and 
planted new, buying trade secrets from other countries and 
inducing foreign artisans to settle in France and teach their 
methods to native workmen ; and before long factories for 
cloth-making, lace-making, silk-making, the weaving of carpets 
and stockings, and metal, leather, and glass works sprang up 
all over the land.^ On the other hand, he sought to foster 
such home industries by a rigorous protective system, placing 
duties often high enough to be prohibitive on articles hitherto 

^ In 1662 he purchased the famous tapestry manufactory of the Gobelins 
and reorganized it as a royal upholstery establishment. 



LOUIS XIV 

imported from abroad which could now be produced at home. 
To the same end he also granted subsidies and monopolies 
to individuals and corporations, and, true to the prevailing 
theory of centralization, carried State control into the minutest 
details of factory organization. In all this we can now see 
the fundamental fallacies of the doctrines of protection and 
paternalism, and we are not, therefore, surprised either that 
his endeavours to make France independent of the rest of 
the world led ultimately to artificial stimulation, inflation of 
prices, and tariff wars, or that his policy of State interference 
proved destructive of individual initiative and power. But 
we must of course consider his labours in the light, not of later 
experience, but of his own time, and if he was no wiser economi- 
cally than his contemporaries in other countries, his intentions 
were undeniably good. He further sought to open up new 
markets in distant parts of the world by extending the colonial 
system and founding companies for the development of French 
commerce in the Bast and West Indies, in Africa, and in 
Northern Europe ; he improved the transport facilities of the 
country — his most important achievement in this direction 
being the great Canal du Midi, which connects the Mediter- 
ranean with the Garonne ; he reduced, though he did not 
destroy, the provincial tariffs which hampered internal trade ; he 
encouraged shipbuilding and the mercantile marine ; he even 
tried to induce the nobles to take part in commerce by a 
special edict proclaiming that they might do so without loss 
of caste. Nor does even this long list include all Colbert's 
labours for reform, for a great improvement in the legis- 
lative system of the country is also to be put down to his 
credit. 

It was by such heroic efforts as these for the national welfare 
that Colbert contributed substantially to the real greatness 
of the early years of lyouis' independent reign. But while 
he was thus straining every nerve to build up the prosperity 
of France, there was another minister who was working quite 
as hard to ensure its military supremacy. This was the 
Marquis of lyouvois, the Minister for War, who completely 

373 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

reorganized the army and made it far more efficient as a fighting 
machine than it had ever been before. Colbert and Louvois 
were long rivals in the King's councils, and their influences 
told in absolutely opposite directions. But in the end lyouvois 
gained the upper hand, to the detriment of the best interests 
of the realm. 

Foreign Affairs : The War of Devolution 

At the opening of Louis' independent reign the condition of 
Europe favoured the growth of his ambitions. The strength 
of France was in the measure of the weakness of other nations ; 
for Germany was in confusion, Spain decadent, Austria crippled, 
England embarrassed by the now restored Stuarts, and Holland, 
though powerful commercially, too feeble on the military side 
to interfere seriously in foreign affairs. Thus the way was 
cl^ar for France to step into the place of pre-eminence which 
Spain had long filled, and for Louis himself to become head 
and dictator of Christendom. Such was the seductive object 
which was already in the young King's mind, and in the pursuit 
of which he brought to his country a few years of empty glory, 
to be followed in due course by ignominy and disaster. 

At the outset the foreign relations of France were disturbed 
only by trivial incidents, such as a quarrel with Spain over 
the question of the precedence of the French and Spanish 
ambassadors in London ^ and a misunderstanding with the 
Pope, which led to nothing important and are chiefly signi- 
ficant as revealing Louis' determination to assert his majesty 
whenever and wherever it seemed to be threatened. Louis* 
first war — the War of Devolution — arose out of his marriage 
with Marie-Therese, which, arranged ostensibly to seal the 
peace between France and Spain, was now the cause of a 
fresh struggle between them. The situation was this : In 
1665 Philip IV died, leaving as heir to his throne a son, then 
four years old, the child of his second marriage. Upon this 
Louis put forth a claim to the Spanish Netherlands in right of 

* The " fray" between the ambassadors and the bloodshed which resulted 
are described in Pepys' Diary, September 30, 1661. 

374 



LOUIS XIV 

his wife ; the basis of such claim being a custom of the Nether- 
lands in accordance with which a paternal heritage devolved 
upon the children of a first marriage to the exclusion of all 
others. Spain replied that this was merely a civil custom 
which did not apply to the transmission of territory. It was 
also true that under the Treaty of the Pyrenees Marie-Therese 
had formally renounced all pretensions to her father's domi- 
nions ; but this renunciation had been made contingent upon 
the payment of a large dowry — a condition expressly designed 
by Mazarin as a loophole, since he well knew that in the insolvent 
state of the Spanish Treasury such payment was impossible. 
The war which followed has no interest from a military point 
of view, for Spain was entirely unequal to the contest, and 
Turenne and Conde, now once more fighting on the same 
side, met with little serious opposition in their campaigns. 
It was closed by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), by which 
a part of Flanders was added to French territory and the 
frontier greatly strengthened on the north-east, though Franche- 
Comte, which Conde had also occupied, was abandoned. One 
reason for this rather abrupt termination of hostilities was 
the action which England and Holland now took to arrest 
French aggression, the danger of which prompted them to 
sink their long-standing jealousies and make common cause 
against a foe which menaced them both. I^argely through 
the admirable diplomacy of Sir William Temple, Sweden was 
also brought iiito the coalition, and the Triple Alliance thus 
instituted was formidable enough to prove a decisive factor 
in the establishment of peace. 

The War with Holland 

^ But neither lyouis nor his ministers regarded this peace as 
permanent. The King had many personal grievances against 
the Dutch. He could not forgive them for the active part 
they had played against him ; he resented the sturdy inde- 
pendence of their diplomatists ; his irritable vanity was 
ruffled by the outspoken criticism of their pamphleteers and 
by the offensive medals which had been struck to commemorate ' 

375 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the Treaty of Aix ; while his absolutist ideas were outraged 
by their republicanism and his religious prejudices by their 
Protestantism. At the same time their commercial success 
and the friction which had arisen about tariffs provoked Colbert 
and brought him to the side of the bellicose Ivouvois, who 
held firmly to the view that the destruction of the United 
Provinces was necessary to the completion of the conquest 
of the Spanish Netherlands. lyouis was thus easily persuaded 
to abandon the policy of Richelieu and Mazarin, both of 
whom had looked upon Holland as the natural ally of France 
against Spain, and to enter upon a war which, whatever 
pretexts might be trumped up in defence of it, was in fact 
nothing more than a war of utterly unjustifiable aggression. 

While lyouvois was busy- with elaborate preparations for 
the coming campaign, diplomacy cleared the way by breaking 
up 'the Triple Alliance. Sweden was detached from the coali- 
tion by the promise of a large subsidy. England — or rather 
England's shameless king — ^was also bought over. With a 
fatuous desire to emulate his cousin, Charles II was doing his 
best to rule without a Parliament, and his chronic need of 
money and unwillingness to go to the Commons for it made 
him at all times ready to accept doles from Ivouis' purse. As 
mercenary as he was profligate, he had already sold Dunkerque 
to the French, and now by a secret treaty — ^the Treaty of 
Dover (1670)— he entered into an offensive alliance with Ivouis 
in return for a handsome pension. The French position was 
further strengthened by the renewal of the treaty with the 
League of the Rhine. Holland, on the other hand, now entirely 
isolated, was rendered specially vulnerable by its own military 
weakness and internal dissensions. lyouis, however, did not 
move till everything was in complete readiness, and then in 
1672 he took the field at the head of a splendidly equipped 
army, with Turenne and Conde as his chief commanders. 
The Rhine was crossed without difficulty — an achievement 
which was celebrated with the most fulsome flattery in art 
and poetry, 1 but which Napoleon pronounced " a military 

r 

1 E.g., Boileau's EpUre au Roi : Le Passage du Rhin. 

376 



LOUIS XIV 

operation of the fourth class " ; the United Provinces were 
invaded ; cit37^ after city fell into French hands ; and the 
triumphant progress continued till Amsterdam itself was 
threatened. The Dutch were at first paralysed, and for the 
moment their condition and outlook seemed in the last degree 
desperate. But the extravagant demands with which lyouis 
responded to their appeal for peace stirred them to indignation 
and stung them to resistance. The oligarchic party of Jan 
De Witt was overthrown, he and his brother were murdered 
by a mob which held them responsible for all their troubles, 
and William of Orange was created Stadtholder and given 
supreme command by land and sea. The young prince — he 
was only twenty-two — attacked his apparently hopeless task 
with sagacity as well as courage. By cutting the dikes about 
Amsterdam and flooding the country he compelled the French 
to retreat, while at the same time he took advantage of the 
alarm caused throughout Europe by Louis' aggressive policy, 
and by consummate diplomacy succeeded in forming the 
Grand Alliance of The Hague — a powerful anti-French league 
of which Holland itself, the Empire, Spain, Brandenburg, 
Denmark, and Saxon}^ were the principal members (1673). 
Shortly afterward the artificial alliance between France and 
England broke down under pressure of popular feeling in the 
latter country, and England made a separate peace with the 
Dutch. By his irrational ambitions I^ouis had thus contrived 
to array half of Europe against him ; and even his continued 
military successes were no adequate offset to the peril latent 
in so grave a change in the general situation. Inspired by 
pique and cupidity, he had set out to crush Holland. He 
now found himself involved in a European war with Sweden 
only on his side. 

French military genius, however, rose equal to the occasion. 
Franche-Comte was again occupied (1764). Turenne with 
brilliant strategy saved Alsace, which was held as lost (1674), 
and pushed on into the Palatinate, where he was killed by a 
cannon-ball while reconnoitring near Salzbach (1675). Conde 
meanwhile had been operating against strong Dutch and 

377 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Spanish forces in Champagne (1674), but on Turenne's death 
he was despatched into Alsace, which was again threatened, 
and whence he drove the Imperial armies across the Rhine 
(1675). The naval victories of Duquesne over the united 
Dutch and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean were the chief 
events of 1676. The next year Crequi and Luxembourg, who 
had replaced Turenne and Conde (now retired), carried on 
successful campaigns in Germany and the Netherlands, the 
defeat of William of Orange at Cassel and the fall of Cambrai 
and Saint-Omer adding great glory to the French arms. 

The Treaty of Nimeguen 

By this time, however, the strain of war was beginning to 
tell seriously on the finances, and the continually increasing 
burdens of taxation gave rise to discontent throughout the 
country and here and there to spasmodic revolts, which obliged 
Louis, however unwillingly, to turn his attention from military 
tritnnphs abroad to affairs at home. Another fresh factor in 
the situation was the action of England, which, neutral since 
1674, now in 1677 entered into an active alliance with the 
Dutch, which was cemented by the marriage of the Stadtholder 
to Mary, the niece of the King. In these circumstances Louis 
realized the wisdom of making peace while the advantage 
was still decidedly in his favour, and the war was closed by 
the Treaty of Nimeguen (August 1678-February 1679).^ The 
terms of this treaty were highly honourable and advantageous 
to the United Provinces, which, menaced at the outset with 
total destruction, now remained in possession of all their 
territory. Spain, on the other hand, suffered considerably. 
France, while relinquishing all claim to Holland, obtained 
the confirmation of all the benefits accruing under the Treaty 
of Westphalia, and in addition acquired Franche-Comte and 
a line of strong fortified cities of great value as frontier defences. 

Historians are agreed that this settlement marks the meridian 
of Louis' reign. It was soon after this that the Parliament of 

* To be exact, there were really three treaties : one with Holland, a second 
with Spain, and a third with the Emperor. 

378 



LOUIS XIV 

Paris formally bestowed upon him the title of ' le Grand/ 
Yet, though he had emerged victorious from an unjust war, 
and though the supremacy of his military power and his 
personal prestige at home and abroad had alike been placed 
beyond challenge, he had in fact gained far less than he had 
hoped, while by his very success he had deepened the appre- 
hensions of other European nations and consolidated the 
antagonism which his lust for territorial aggrandizement had 
first aroused. In particular he had united Holland and Eng- 
land against him, and had created a stubborn and implacable 
enemy in the Prince of Orange, soon to be called to the English 
throne. The " hollow and unsatisfactory " Peace of Nimeguen 
(as Macaulay well calls it) was therefore fraught with fresh 
dangers which were certain to prove the more serious by 
reason of the malign influence of his triumphs upon I^ouis 
himself. His vanity, his ambition, his thirst for military 
glory at all cost had alike been quickened. Blind to the 
interests of his country, he now entered upon the road which 
he dreamed would lead him to ever more and more transcendent 
successes. It proved, on the contrary, to be the road to ruin. 



379 



CHAPTER VI 

LOUIS XIV 

III. THE PERIOD OF DEClvINE 
1684-1715 

THE cessation of hostilities with the settlement of Nimeguen 
was welcomed by all the nations which had been drawn 
into the Dutch war.' But it put no check upon Louis* 
territorial ambitions. On the contrary, in Voltaire's phrase, 
he made a period of peace a period of conquests. Taking 
advantage of the ambiguities in the Treaty of Westphalia, he 
proceeded, now by tortuous dii^lomacy, now b3^ subsidies, and 
now by bullying, to add to his possessions in Alsace and Franche- 
Comte, annexing in particular three powerful fortresses of im- 
mense strategic value — ^I^uxemburg, Strassburg, and Casale. 
Naturally the suspicions of Europe, and especially of the 
Empire, vSpain, and Italy, were again aroused by these fresh 
acts of usurpation, and under the influence of William of 
Orange a secret alHance against I^ouis was formed, which, 
though of little importance at the outset, developed later 
into the great coalition known as the League of Augsburg. 
But in the meantime Louis continued to act with unexampled 
arrogance as the dictator of Christendom, and, deeply as his 
conduct was resented, no one for the moment dared to inter- 
fere. He thus had his way, and by the Truce of Ratisbon 
(1684) secured the assurance of twenty years' undisputed 
enjoyment of his various recent acquisitions. 

Just a year before this France had lost a real friend and 
Louis the wisest of his counsellors by the death of Colbert. 
That great minister had spent the last of his energies in 
unavailing resistance to forces which had become too strong 
380 



LOUIS XIV 

for him. Once more the finances of the country lapsed into 
anarchy. The war had already drained the Treasury, and 
now money and ever more money had somehow to be found 
to meet the King's ever-growing extravagances — his bribes 
to foreign princes, his vast expenditure on costly buildings 
(at Trianon, Marly, Clagny, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, 
Vincennes, Versailles), on royal fetes and progresses, on his 
mistresses and personal dissipations. It was in vain that 
Colbert implored him to economize, in vain that he sought to 
turn his master's attention from military ambitions to the 
needs of his people. The King was deaf to all his entreaties, 
and as million followed million into the abyss Colbert was 
driven to resort to the extortions of his precursors in order 
to wring money out of an impoverished and discontented 
peasantry, who execrated him as the author of all their suffer- 
ings. Bitterly disappointed to see his work for reform undone, 
he died, worn out by toil and heart-broken, in September 1683. 
His influence, which on the whole had been distinctly for 
good, had long been waning before that of his rival, l/ouvois, 
and his place in the King's confidence was now definitely taken 
by that unscrupulous and truculent Chauvinist, who cared 
nothing for the welfare of the people and everything for war 
and foreign conquest. As a spur always ready to prick the 
side of his master's intent, he was henceforth for many years 
to be the evil genius of the King and the country. 

Louis' Private Life 

Though it is fortunately no part of our bUvSiness here to 
swell our record with details drawn from the voluminous 
chroniques scandaleuses of I^ouis' reign, a few words must still 
be devoted to the more private side of his life because of the 
direct bearing of this upon the course of national affairs. 

lyouis XIII, with all his faults, had possessed one redeem- 
ing virtue rare in high places at the time, that of personal 
chastity. lyOuis XIV, on the contrary, was as lecherous as 
his grandfather and even more unstable in his profligacy. 
Unfaithful as a lover no less than as a husband, he not only 

381 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

indulged his passions without check or shame, but even relieved 
the monotony of his more serious illicit unions with innumerable 
caprices which passed almost as soon as they were born. The 
first of his more enduring attachments was for Lionise de la 
Valliere, a gentle, dreamy, fair-haired, blue-eyed girl, who 
loved her royal master with unmistakable sincerity, bore him 
two children, and when his fondness for her subsided retired 
to a Carmelite convent, where she spent the remaining thirty 
years of her life in austere religious devotions. She was 
succeeded by a woman of very different character, the haughty, 
ambitious, imperious Fran^oise-Athenais de Mortemart, the 
wife of the Marquis of Montespan. For fourteen years she 
remained the King's chief mistress, and no fewer than eight 
children were the fruit of- the union — children whom IvOuis 
had the impudence to legitimatize and to place on an equal 
footing with those of his wife. Then in turn her period of 
ascendancy came to a stormy close with the rise of a new 
power which was destined to change the current of the King's 
life and the whole spirit of the Court — that of the famous 
Mme de Maintenon. So great was the part played by this 
remarkable woman during the second half of lyouis' reign that 
some account of her is indispensable to our story. 

Mme de Maintenon 

Fran^oise d'Aubigne was the granddaughter of the dis- 
tinguished Huguenot scholar and soldier Theodore Agrippa 
d'Aubigne, and was born in 1635 in the prison of Niort, where 
her rascally father was confined for debt. After a girlhood 
of adventure and struggle she married at seventeen the witty, 
brave, dissipated cripple — " ce joyeux et savant cul-de-jatte," 
as vSaint-Simon calls him — ^the dramatist and novelist Paul 
Scarron, through whom she became intimate with the leaders 
of the literary world of Paris. On his death in 1660 she fell 
into obscurity, but nine years later she was appointed governess 
of the King's children by Mme de Montespan, a charge which 
she fulfilled with great wisdom and solicitude, winning their 
affection, and at the same time arousing the jealousy of their 

382 




59- Madame; de Mainxenon 



382 



LOUIS X,IV 

mother, who before long began, and with good cause, to regard 
her as a dangerous rival. The struggle between the two 
women was long and bitter ; but by little and little, though 
she steadily refused to take the shortest road to the King's 
favour, Mme-Scarron gained the royal confidence and esteem, 
and in 1675 she was formally presented to Court under the 
title of the Marquise de Maintenon.^ This was the first decisive 
step toward her ultimate victory. The King's intrigue with 
a certain Mile de Fontanges was a temporary check to the 
growth of her influence, but this was removed by the death 
in 168 1 of that beautiful and self-willed girl after a reign of 
scarcely more than a year. Many violent scenes had meanwhile 
taken place, sometimes in the presence of royalty itself, between 
Mme de Maintenon and Mme de Montespan, but by this time 
the breach between I^ouis and his former mistress was generally 
understood by the Court. In 1683 the Queen died, and not 
long after — probably in December 1684 — ^Mme de Maintenon 
was married to the King. The marriage was clandestine, and 
Madame never assumed the rank of Queen. But the secret 
was an open one, and her position was fully recognized even 
by the royal princes. Mme de Montespan none the less 
lingered for several years about the Court and capital. She 
finally retired in 169 1, spent her remaining years (after the 
fashion of women of her class) in religious exercises, and died 
in 1707. 

The character of Mme de Maintenon, though it has been 
repeatedly analysed and discussed, is still a good deal of an 
enigma. She was undoubtedly a woman of clear head and 
strong will, astute, ambitious, prudent, and cold. Scandal 
gathered about her earlier life, but that, in the circumstances 
of the time, was perhaps inevitable, and it would seem that 
though her lot was cast from the first among persons of the 
laxest morals, her own conduct, if not altogether faultless, 
was beyond serious reproach. It is certain at least that amid 
all the profligacy of the Court she was conspicuously jealous 

^ Maintenon was the name of an estate which she had recently bought, 
and which was made into a marquisate by the King. 

383 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of her good name. The question of her sincerity in the matter 
of reUgion is perhaps a more difficult one. She has been 
portrayed by adverse critics, who take their cue from the 
thoroughly hostile Saint-Simon, as a clever and unscrupulous 
hypocrite; with whom piety was simply the means to an end ; 
and it must, I think, be conceded that her career presents 
problems which can scarcely be solved on the supposition that 
she was always actuated by pure and disinterested motives. 
None the less she seems to have been a thoroughly devout 
woman, though her ideas of religion took an extremely dis- 
agreeable form ; and if she was shrewd enough to make capital 
out of her reputation for sanctity and ascetic virtue, that 
reputation was still deserved. 

It is here then that we. have to reckon with her influence 
upon the King. Urged on by her clerical advisers — by men 
like her confessor the Abbe Gobelin, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue — 
she undertook in earnest the task of I^ouis' moral reformation. 
Her first great success was in bringing about his reconciliation 
with his neglected wife. After the Queen's death and her 
own marriage she used her power to turn his attention more 
and more to matters of piety and to give a religious direction 
to his policy. Nor was this so remarkable an achievement 
as might at first sight be supposed. A worn-out rake easily 
becomes a devotee, and as, moreover, despite his outrageous 
licentiousness, I^ouis had always shown a strong religious bias, 
which had already been increasing with advancing years, 
Madame found a soil well prepared for the seed she was so 
anxious to sow. The result was a profound change not only 
in lyouis' own life, but also in the whole tone and temper of 
the Court. The brilliant fetes which had long been the glory 
of Versailles were now things of the past ; even the most 
profligate of the nobility found it desirable, not indeed to 
abandon, but at least to dissemble, their excesses, now that 
pensions and promotions were the reward of punctual fulfil- 
ment of the duties enjoined by the Church ; religion, as Madame 
herself boasted, became fashionable ; and though it was at 
bottom only a religion of the most empty pretence — though, in 

384 



LOUIS XIV 

Saint-Simon's vivid phrase, the Court " sweated hypocrisy " — 
the increase in sobriety and external decency may still be 
counted as a gain. 

Louis' Religious Policy 

In another way, however, Mme de Maintenon's ascendancy 
was unquestionably and wholly for evil. Born a Protestant, 
but converted to Catholicism while a girl, she was a stifE- 
necked bigot in the faith of her adoption and was filled with 
the bitterest animus against her former co-religionists. In 
such a mind as I^ouis' piety and intolerance were inseparable, 
and Madame's influence helped to strengthen their union. 

But here we must speak with qualification. The idea is 
widely current that she was herself personally and immediately 
responsible for those crimes of religious bigotry which have 
left the darkest blot on lyouis' character and reign. This was 
not so. She stimulated his zeal for orthodoxy and an active 
propagandism in the cause of the Church, but otherwise her 
influence upon him was almost entirely indirect, and is to be 
sought mainly in the growth, under the new conditions which 
she helped to bring about, of the power of the clergy in national 
affairs. The prime force behind lyouis' policy of reaction was 
the Church. Yet so despotic was the King's temper, so deeply 
rooted in his mind was the idea of the absolute supremacy 
of his will in all things, that he yielded even to ecclesiastical 
persuasion only when, like Macbeth's airy dagger, it marshalled 
him the way that he was going. 

Personal feelings thus made him a resolute supporter of 
the liberties of the Gallican Church, which for him were identical 
with the prerogatives of the Crown. Twice he quarrelled with 
the Pope : once over the question of the regale, or the royal 
right of disposing, according to ancient custom, of the revenues 
and benefices of bishoprics during their vacancy ; and again 
some years later about the privilege enjoyed by the French 
ambassador, in common with other ambassadors, of granting 
asylum to fugitives in his hotel in Rome; and in each case 
he showed his determination to withstand any encroachment 

2B 385 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

upon his authority even on the part of the Holy See itself. 
The first of these disputes, though trivial enough in itself, is 
important because it led to a clear statement of Gallican claims. 
These claims were formulated by an extraordinary assembly 
of clergy convened for the purpose, the moving spirit in which 
was the silver-tongued and servile Bossuet, who, though he 
never once protested against I^ouis' scandalous life or his 
unjust and wicked wars, was ready now as at all times to 
uphold his most extravagant theories of absolutism. Reduced 
to simplest terms, the famous Declaration of 1682 — long 
regarded as the Charter of Gallicanism — ^was tantamount to 
an assertion of the supremacy of the King in Church as well 
as in State. The Pope, it was decreed, had no right to interfere 
in temporal matters ; even in spiritual affairs his authority 
was inferior to that of the General Councils ; ^ " the rules, 
customs, and institutions " of the national Church, which had 
made that Church largely independent of Rome, were to stand 
unchanged ; while the judgment of the Pope was practically 
stripped of its infalhbility, since it was pronounced to be 
conditional upon oecumenical ratification. 

Louis and the Huguenots 

lyouis' duel with Rome was, however, only a minor episode 
in his reign and led to no consequences of great significance. 
It was a very different matter when the same autocratic spirit 
prompted him to the destruction of every vestige of religious 
liberty amoug his subjects. 

We have seen that after their political annihilation by 
Richelieu the Huguenots had accepted their new conditions 
and had settled down peacefully under the protection assured 
to them by the State. The great Cardinal had himself made 
this easy for them by his wise policy of conciliation, and in 
this he had been followed by Mazarin and Colbert, both of 
whom had fully recognized the qualities of the Huguenots as 
law-abiding citizens, and in particular the immense value of 

^ This article was a restatement of the decree of the Council of Constance 
(1414-18). 

386 



LOUIS XIV 

their work in the industrial development of the country. How 
completely they had now abandoned their former unpatriotic 
ambitions is shown by the striking fact that they had taken 
no part in the disturbances of the Frondes. Yet, despite this 
radical change in the whole tenor of their life, they were still 
regarded with a certain amount of popular suspicion, while 
clerical clamour against them had never ceased. To this 
clamour, which grew steadily in volume and virulence after 
his accession to power, I^ouis was himself predisposed to listen. 
He disliked Protestantism on religious grounds, but still more 
on political. The Huguenots were heretics, which was bad 
enough ; but they were also schismatics, which was ever so 
much worse. They were good subjects, it is true ; but they 
still persisted in their independence in respect of creed and 
ecclesiastical organization, and for this reason their very 
existence seemed to him a perpetual challenge to his theory 
of absolute power. That any body of men should assume the 
right to worship God in ways other than those which he himself 
prescribed was intolerable to his arrogant spirit. His purpose 
was to be supreme over the consciences no less than over the 
actions of his people. Religious liberty was therefore for 
him only a subtle form of political insubordination. Such 
being his views, the really surprising thing is that, notwith- 
standing the ever-increasing pressure of the zealots at Court, 
his recourse to open violence should have been so long deferred. 
For some years after Mazarin's death the attempt to under- 
mine Protestantism was conducted only by peaceful methods. 
Missionaries were sent to preach to the heretics ; dogmatic 
literature was distributed among them ; all the arts of per- 
suasion were employed to lead them from the error of their 
ways ; and, to reinforce the appeal, those who yielded received 
handsome rewards. Only slight headway was made, however, 
and presently this policy of friendly propagandism was suc- 
ceeded by efforts of a more aggressive character. Enactment 
after enactment was levelled against the privileges of the 
sectaries both as Protestants and as citizens. Their civil 
liberties were curtailed. lyittle by little they were excluded 

387 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

from all public employments. Many of their schools and 
temples were closed, and their rights of worship were inter- 
fered with. Moreover, in countless other insidious ways their 
position was rendered more and more intolerable ; for example, 
mixed marriages were prohibited, and while Catholics were 
forbidden under heavy penalties to embrace Protestantism, 
Protestant children, on the other hand, were permitted to 
renounce their faith at the age of seven — a monstrous provision 
the practical purpose of which is of course sufficiently clear. 
Such systematic persecution was galling enough. It increased 
in vigour with lyouis' growing bigotry under the influence of 
Mme de Maintenon, his confessor the Pere T,a. Chaise, and the 
great leader of the devout part3' at Court, Bossuet. In 1679 
we find Mme de Maintenon .writing of the King : *' II pense 
serieusement a la conversion des heretiques, et dans peu il y 
travaillera pour tout de bon." These words herald the harsher 
measures which began in the following year. To the few who 
deprecated such measures Bossuet had a simple and crushing 
reply : " Those who do not approve of the King's using violence 
in the matter of religion, on the ground that religion ought to 
be free, are guilty of blasphemy and error." More than any 
other man I^ouvois was responsible for the savagery which 
ensued when regiments of dragoons — notorious as the most 
brutal soldiers in the French army — were despatched first into 
the Cevennes and later into Beam to annihilate heresy with 
fire and sword. 

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 

It need scarcely be said that I hold no brief for lyOuis, but 
in fairness to him it must be remembered that he was himself 
in all probability kept in ignorance of the worst features of 
such new methods for ''la conversion des heretiques." He 
learned only of the practical results of these dragonnades in 
the return — so it was reported to him — of many thousands of 
misbelievers to the fold of the true Church. Such results 
encouraged him to strike his great final blow at Protestant- 
ism. On October 22, 1685, a decree was promulgated formally 

388 



LOUIS XIV 

revoking the Edict of Nantes. By this enactment all civil 
and religious privileges hitherto enjoyed by the Protestants 
were cancelled, their ministers were expelled the country, their 
schools suppressed, and their temples destroyed,. 

This outrageous measure was followed up by renewed 
dragonnades and much cruel persecution of the Protestants in 
all parts of the country, and a little later by a revolt of the 
Camisards ^ in the Cevennes, which lasted for some years and 
was not thoroughly crushed until the whole region had been 
devastated. But such things were commonly regarded as 
mere incidents, regrettable, of course, but of no importance. 
The act of revocation was received with almost universal 
rejoicing. It was, according to Bossuet, a " miracle," for 
the performance of which, however, the sycophant preacher 
was careful to divide the praise between the Almighty and 
His vicegerent on earth. The dying I^e Tellier welcomed it 
with a fervent ** Nunc dimitte, Domine, quia viderunt oculi 
mei salutem tuam." Even Mme de Sevigne, from whom a 
saner judgment might have been expected, wrote of it in a 
letter : " Nothing could be finer ; no king ever did or ever 
will do anything so memorable." All over the country 
preachers and poets, academies and municipalities, combined 
to swell the chorus of jubilation ; the only cause for regret 
being that the last clause of the edict still accorded to the 
heretics the privilege of purely private worship. Only here 
and there a solitary observer, like Vauban,^ like Saint-Simon, 

^ So called from the camise, or blouse, worn by the peasants. 

' Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban was a man of special distinction as the 
greatest military engineer of his age, and the father of the science of fortifi- 
cation. Altogether he conducted fifty-three successful sieges. It was he 
who surrounded France with a cordon of fortresses which proved to be of 
the utmost value in subsequent wars. Saint-Simon speaks of him, apparently 
without exaggeration, as " perhaps the most honest and virtuous man of 
his time." His wisdom as a statesman was shown in his attempts to reform 
many abuses during the later years of Louis' reign. Unlike most of the 
great soldiers of the age — Cond6, for example, Turenne, lyouvois — ^he was a 
kind-hearted man, with a deep respect for human life. " Sire," he once said 
to lyouis, " I would rather save a hundred of your men than kill three thousand 
of the enemy." 

389 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

had the sagacity to perceive that this *' crowning glory of the 
King's reign " was in fact a blunder of the first magnitude as 
well as an atrocious crime. Its moral iniquity is too flagrant 
to require comment. But attention should be directed to its 
stupidity as revealed by its economic and social bearings. In 
spite of severe edicts against emigration, many thousands of 
Protestants — Henri Martin puts the number at from 200,000 
to 250,000 — fled into England, Holland, and Brandenburg, 
carrying with them their skill and their knowledge of arts 
and manufactures to enrich the countries in which they sought 
asylum at the expense of their native land. As the industry 
of France had been largely in Huguenot hands, the effect of 
this great exodus will be obvious. Some thousands of the 
best French soldiers and sailors likewise passed over into the 
seryice of other Powers ; while a serious loss to the moral 
strength of the nation was entailed by the withdraw^al of so 
large a body of men having all the sturdy qualities of our 
own Puritan stock. 

War with the League of Augsburg 

Having now, as he fondly believed, destroyed Protestantism 
in France, lyouis was ready to take another disastrous step 
under the same combined influences of personal vanity and 
religious zeal. Richelieu and Mazarin had united with the 
Protestant nations against Spain and Austria. lyouis was 
resolved to be the head of a Catholic Europe. Three years 
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes James II was 
driven from the English throne, and I^ouis' old enemy William 
of Orange was invited to take his place. James, who fled 
to France on William's approach, was warmly welcomed by 
Louis, who at once took up his cause as that both of Catho- 
licism and of the absolutist principle of " the right divine of 
kings to govern wrong." The result was that France was 
soon involved in a long and tedious war with the now powerful 
lycague of Augsburg. 

Fortune seemed at first to smile on James, but the fate of 
that foolish and cowardly king was settled by the battle of 

390 



LOUIS XIV 

the Boyne (July 1690) and the great naval engagement at 
I^a Hogue (May 1692), which struck a severe blow at the 
power of France at sea and finally convinced lyouis that his 
attempt to restore the Stuarts in England was doomed to 
failure. On the Continent campaign followed campaign with 
little system on either side and with no decisive result. For 
France the war was mainly one of defence, and the splendid 
fortifications which had been provided by Vauban enabled her 
to hold the enemy at bay on all her frontiers. Furthermore, 
in order to establish the barrier of an absolute desert on the 
east, the Palatinate was wasted and pillaged, at the direction 
of lyouvois, with fearful barbarities which aroused the horror 
and indignation of Europe. Meanwhile Catinat twice routed 
the Duke of Savoy — at Staff arde (1690) and at Marsaglia 
(1693) — and lyuxembourg, Turenne's successor, won notable 
victories in the Netherlands, at Fleurus (1690), Steenkerke 
(1692), and Neerwinden (1693). But, brilliant as these ex- 
ploits were, they were barren of practical results, for William 
of Orange, though repeatedly defeated, always contrived to 
prevent his adversary from profiting by his success. So the 
war dragged on for several years longer, and then, though he 
had really accomplished nothing, lyOuis found it necessary to 
open negotiations for peace. France was sick of the protracted 
and aimless struggle. Economically the country was on the 
brink of ruin. In many parts the population was decreasing ; 
industry and commerce were declining rapidly ; the financial 
policy of Colbert's successors was reckless and suicidal ; poverty 
and misery were universal ; a dangerous spirit of discontent 
was abroad ; and, despite the rigours of the censorship, there 
was much open and often daring criticism not only of the 
King's ministers, but even of his sacred Majesty himself. 
Even lyOuis, though his early ambitions for the welfare of his 
subjects had long since vanished before his dreams of conquest 
and glory, could hardly be blind to such omens of disaster. 
He was, moreover, impelled to bring the war to a close by a 
consideration which had greater weight with him than the 
appalHng state of his people. It was known that the childless 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Charles II of Spain, who had been dying all his life, was now 
at last tottering on the brink of the grave. His death would 
open the question of the succession to the Spanish throne, and 
lyouis intended that the settlement of that question should be 
dictated by himself. But to the end that his hands might be 
free, he must first break up the coalition against him, and 
this could be done only through peace. 

The Treaty of Ryswick 

It has been said that he showed great moderation and a 
marked desire to conciliate his enemies in the terms arranged. 
The implied praise is scarcely his due. As a matter of fact, 
these terms did not emanate from him. They were imposed 
upon him by his two stubborn opponents, William III and 
the Emperor Leopold. The Treaty of Ryswick (September 
16197) was, indeed, extremely humiliating both to lyouis and 
to France. Concessions were made in it on every side. Louis' 
chief foe, William, was recognized as King of England ; all 
recent conquests in the Netherlands, Germany, and vSpain, 
except Strassburg, were relinquished ; the Dutch, though they 
restored the French colony of Pondicherry, were accorded 
an advantageous treaty of commerce and were permitted to 
garrison a number of important frontier or ' barrier ' towns. 
The nine years' war had brought a certain amount of honour 
to French arms ; but it left Louis with an impoverished country, 
with no gains commensurate with the losses entailed, and with 
a much damaged prestige. 

War of the Spanish Succession : First Period 

Such prestige, however, he hoped to recover in the impending 
controversy about the succession in Spain. As Charles II 
would leave no issue, what would become of his immense 
possessions after his death ? That was the question which 
was now agitating the chancelleries of Europe. There were 
three rival claimants to the throne — the Dauphin of France, 
the Emperor Leopold, and the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. 
As the table opposite will show, the Dauphin, as the grandson 



H 
O 



X p 

W CO 



o 



CO 









PL, 
C/2 



pq 

< 

H 

o 
o 

< 
w 

o 





'd 




a 


frt 


o 




a 


-§ 


<u 


£3 


P^ 


•c 


1^ 


rt 


o 


S 


{S 




a* 




n 




W 






fU 



"^ 



CD 

o 

a 

.^ M «0 

, M M 

"B '-' '^ 



o 






'd 
•— ( 
o 
■ cu 
o 
a> 



i3 a 

bo Si 
k2 H 



to 



O 
O 

CO . 



0} 

en 



•g 
3 



a 



0) 

O 



.2 rt 

§1 ^ 
o .13 -r" 

5.1 S 

CO ft 

as 



_fc 3 



d 

a. 

P 
O 



d 

W 

<u ^ 

xn 

O 



-rtr§ 

.d 
a 



d 



« o o 
S^5 ^ d^ 

!d F^ a a. 

^ d PM 



a; 
d 

o 
^'- 



'd 

d 
P 



^s 



393 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of Philip IV, had genealogically the strongest claim ; then 
came the Prince of Bavaria, as the great-grandson of Philip ; 
and last of all the Emperor, as first cousin of Charles II. But 
against both the Dauphin and the Prince stood the acts of 
renunciation signed on marriage by the mother of the one 
and the grandmother of the other respectively. It is true 
that in the former case lyouis, as we have seen, treated such 
renunciation as void, since the promised dowry remained 
unpaid, while in the latter the act was held invalid by the 
Spanish jurists themselves, because it had never been confirmed 
by the Gortes. But the existence of these theoretical bars 
made it possible for the Emperor to maintain his pretensions 
against the stronger claims of his two rivals. 

The only peaceful solution of this complicated problem lay 
in the partitioning of the Spanish empire to the satisfaction 
not*^ only of the contending parties, but also of the other 
European Powers, who were naturally anxious that the situa- 
tion should not develop into a new general war. Accordingly, 
while the wretched Charles still lingered on from month to 
month and from year to year, diplomatic negotiations were 
proceeding which resulted in two Treaties of Partition (1698, 
1700), under which the Dauphin was to receive the kingdom 
of Naples, the Two Sicilies, I^orraine, and a few Tuscan ports. 
But the dying monarch grew indignant when he learned that 
his dominions were thus being parcelled out behind his back 
and without his consent, and in order to thwart the bargainers 
and to secure the integrity of his empire he made a will 
bequeathing it in its entirety to his great-nephew, the Dauphin's 
second son, Philippe, Duke of Anjou. This bequest was, 
however, made on the express condition that Philippe should 
renounce on behalf of himself and his heirs all claim to the 
French throne. Failing such renunciation, the Spanish crown 
was to pass to Charles, the second son of the Emperor I^eopold. 

This will was executed on October 2, 1700. On November i 
Charles died. And now lyouis found himself face to face 
with a problem of the utmost gravity. Should he stand by 
the last Treaty of Partition and by thus rejecting the bequest 

394 



LOUIS XIV 

to his grandson permit the ultimate reunion of Spain and 
Austria ? Or should he repudiate the treaty with the practical 
certainty of involving himself in a war with Austria, Holland, 
and England ? He at once called a special council at Fontaine- 
bleau to consider the question. Then for three days he with- 
held his decision. Yet in the circumstances there could be 
little doubt as to the course which he would elect to take. 
Persuaded that in any event war was inevitable and that, as 
one of his ministers is reported to have put it, it would be 
better to fight for the whole than for the part, he formally 
presented the Duke of Anjou to the Court as the new King 
of Spain. 

- This decision meant the aggrandizement of the Bourbon 
dynasty, and was therefore viewed with hostile eyes by the 
nations concerned to maintain the balance of power. But 
war might still have been averted but for the fact that lyouis 
was now guilty of two amazing blunders which revealed at 
once his intolerable arrogance and his utter want of any sense 
of honour. In the first place he violated the express condition 
of Charles II's will by allowing his grandson to ascend the 
throne of Spain while reserving his contingent right to that 
of France. In the second place, in defiance of the Treaty of 
Ryswick, he seized the barrier fortresses in the Netherlands 
and recognized the eldest son of James II (now just dead) 
as King of England — an insult which stung the English people 
to the quick. By these insensate acts he precipitated a 
struggle for which France, still suffering from the terrible 
strain of the last war, was very poorly prepared. Once more 
he had rashly challenged the strength of Western Europe. 
Against him he had England, Holland, Austria, and the Empire, 
united in the Grand Alliance of The Hague ; on his side only 
the Elector of Bavaria and the Dukes of Modena and Savoy ; 
for though Spain was of course nominally with him she had 
neither soldiers nor money for his practical support. lyouis 
had thus to meet a formidable coalition almost single-handed. 
Nor was this the only disquieting feature in his situation. The 
balance of intellect was also against him. The great admini- 

395 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

strators and captains who had done so much for the glory of 
the early years of his reign — Colbert, I^ouvois, Conde, Turenne — 
had now passed away, and they had left no competent suc- 
cessors. On the other hand, though William III died imme- 
diately after the outbreak of hostilities, the allies had a very 
strong statesman in Anthony Heinsius, Grand Pensionary of 
Holland, and able generals in the Duke of Marlborough and 
Prince Eugene, the greatest soldiers of their time. 

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 till 
17 14, and was fought out in Italy, on the Rhine, in the Nether- 
lands, and in Spain. 

The record of the first three years is one of fluctuating 
fortunes, with gains and losses now on one side and now on 
the other. In Italy the early progress of Prince Eugene was 
arrested by the Duke of Vendome, who in turn was checked 
hf the defection of the Duke of Savoy. Catinat and Villars 
operated with success against the Imperial forces on the Rhine, 
but' were unable to carry out their plan of marching on Vienna. 
Marlborough, in the meantime, commanding the allied English 
and Dutch armies, drove the French from a number of their 
border strongholds in the Spanish Netherlands, and by the 
capture of Venloo, I^iege, and other important places, secured 
Holland against the menace of immediate invasion. But on 
the whole, and despite the fact that the revolt of the Protestants 
in the Cevennes was an additional source of embarrassment 
to the Government, the balance of advantage during the first 
stage of the war was with the French. 

Second Period 

In 1704, however, the tide of fortune suddenly changed. 
In the spring of that year I^ouis determined to make a supreme 
effort to reach Vienna, and thus strike a fatal blow at the 
heart of the Empire. In order to frustrate this design, Marl- 
borough and Eugene joined forces in Bavaria, and in August 
gained what Marlborough himself described as *' a glorious 
victory " over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim. The 
immediate result of this decisive battle was that the French 

39<^ 



LOUIS XIV 

were compelled to evacuate Germany and retire across the 
Rhine. Then the two commanders separated, Marlborough 
returning to the Netherlands and Eugene to Italy. The former 
inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the incompetent Villeroi 
at Ramillies in 1706. In the same year Prince Eugene obtained 
a complete victory over the equally incompetent Marsin before 
Turin. These reverses meant the loss to France of the greater 
part of Brabant and Piedmont. Two years later Marlborough 
and Eugene, once more united, routed the French at Oudenarde. 
The capitulation of Ghent, Bruges, and Lille, which followed, 
exposed the north-east frontier of France to the allies. 

Meanwhile events were moving rapidly in the remaining 
theatre of war. In 1704 Gibraltar was captured by an English 
fleet under Sir George Rooke. In 1705 Barcelona surrendered 
to lyord Peterborough. In 1706 the Earl of Galway entered 
Madrid and the Archduke Charles was proclaimed king. The 
situation in Spain was, however, saved by the remarkable loyalty 
of the people to Philip V. 

Such a succession of reverses would in itself have been 
enough to bring even the imperious I^ouis to his senses. But 
misfortunes abroad were not his only cause for uneasiness. 
The condition of things at home was becoming more and 
more appalling. Exhausted France seemed to be on the raw 
edge of ruin. The finances were in hopeless disorder ; poverty 
was universal ; even the Court began to feel the pinch of 
want. Then came bad harvests, the fearful winter of 1709, 
general famine, and the consequent increase of misery among 
all classes. In such circumstances Louis realized that one 
course only was open to him. Already after Ramillies there 
had been talk of peace, but chiefly through the opposition of 
Marlborough it had come to nothing. Louis now once more 
opened negotiations. 

Unfortunately, however, the successes of the allies had 
made them as overbearing as Louis himself had been at the 
very height of his power, and nothing short of his com- 
plete humiliation would satisfy them. They demanded not 
only that he should surrender Luxemburg, Namur, Charleroi, 

397 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Strassburg, and other important places, but that he should 
also cede the whole of Spain to the Archduke Charles, under- 
taking, if necessary, to join with them in driving Philip out 
of his kingdom. On such conditions a truce of two months 
was to be granted, after which definite terms of peace were 
to be discussed on the basis proposed. 

In making these demands the allies simply overreached 
themselves. They were, indeed, so excessive that even in 
his extremity Louis could not possibly entertain them. The 
personal rebuff he might have accepted, for there is no doubt 
that at the moment his spirit was chastened. But he could 
hardly be expected to consent to fight against his own grand- 
son in the interests of Austria and to see France reduced to 
second rank among the nations. As events proved, the English 
Whig Government were guilty of grave miscalculations in their 
attempt to force such conditions upon him. The situation 
was eminently favourable to them ; but they lost their advan- 
tage by insisting upon terms which practically compelled lyouis 
to continue the struggle. 

As it was, lyouis surprised them by breaking off negotiations 
and throwing himself once more into war. Then he did an 
astonishing thing. For the first and only time in his life 
he cast the principles of absolutism to the winds and made a 
direct appeal to the French nation. In a circular letter which 
he sent broadcast throughout the kingdom he asked his people 
to judge between himself and his enemies. He told them of 
his own desire for peace and of his efforts to secure it, of his 
willingness to make humiliating sacrifices to that great end, 
and of the obvious determination of the allies to crush France 
altogether. '' Although," he wrote, '' my tenderness for my 
people is not less keen than that which I feel for my own 
children ; although I share all the evils which the war has 
made my faithful people suffer, and have shown that I desire 
sincerely to bring them the enjoyment of peace, I am convinced 
that they will themselves refuse to accept conditions equally 
contrary to justice and to the honour of the French name." 
This appeal instantly justified itself. Its effect was remarkable. 

398 



LOUIS XIV 

The heart of the nation was touched. A great wave of patriotic 
enthusiasm swept over the country. The people forgot that 
lyouis had himself plunged them into disaster. They made 
his war their own. He now had a united France behind him — 
a France goaded by misery and nerved by desperation — as he 
entered upon the last stage of the long struggle. 

Closing Period of the War 

The result was that he was now able to put a larger army 
into the field than ever before during the war. The allies, 
well aware of this new effort, made the most elaborate prepara- 
tions for the coming campaign. But their former triumphs 
.were not to be repeated. At Malplaquet, in 1709, Marlborough 
and Eugene were indeed victorious, but they bought success 
at such an enormous cost that Villars was able to write to the 
King : ** If God vouchsafe that we lose such another battle 
Your Majesty may count your enemies destroyed." The 
following year Vendome's victory at Villaviciosa settled 
Philip firmly on the Spanish throne. The allies, who believed 
that France had been finalty vanquished, were amazed at this 
unexpected national revival. By this time, moreover, other 
influences were at work in Louis' favour. England, which had 
long been the mainstay of the Grand Alliance, was fast losing 
interest in the war. The elections of 1710 resulted in the 
return to the House of Commons of a strong Tory majority 
pledged to vote against its continuance. Marlborough, too, 
lost his influence with the Queen. Then an event occurred 
which gave the new Tory ministers Harley and Bolingbroke 
a good excuse to seek for peace. The death of the Emperor 
Joseph I left the Imperial crown to the Archduke Charles. 
This changed the complexion of European affairs, for if the 
new Emperor were now to be placed on the Spanish throne his 
accession would mean the union of Spain and the Empire, 
and therefore the disturbance of that balance of power which 
it was the policy of England to maintain. Nothing definite 
was done for the moment, but though the war continued the 
end was really in sight. After many months of negotiations 

399 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

peace with England and Holland was at last signed at Utrecht 
on April ii, 1713. Even now, however, Austria and Germany 
did not relinquish the struggle, and it was only in the following 
year, after an unsuccessful campaign of Eugene against Villars, 
that peace was concluded with the Emperor by the Treaty of 
Rastadt. 

By these treaties, the terms of which were widely different 
from those which the allies had sought to dictate a few years 
before, the Spanish monarchy was confirmed in the French 
line of the Bourbons, and thus lyouis gained one great point 
for which he had been fighting, though a formal renunciation 
of Philip's claims to the French throne was made by both 
lyouis and his grandson. Spain, however, lost her possessions 
in Italy and the Netherlands, while the Dutch, far as they 
were from realizing all that they had hoped, obtained the 
secdrity of a barrier in the Austrian Netherlands between 
them and France. As a minor result of the treaties Prussia 
was ^recognized as an independent Power. England's share 
of the spoil was represented by Gibraltar, Minorca, and in 
the New World the Hudson Bay Territory, Newfoundland, 
and Nova Scotia. England, moreover, received lyouis' solemn 
assurance that he would give no support to the Jacobites and 
would acknowledge Queen Anne and the Protestant succession. 

Closing Years of Louis' Reign 

Though the English people as a whole were glad enough 
to be done with the war, the Treaty of Utrecht was severely 
criticized by them at the time. It was very generally con- 
sidered that, whether through weakness or want of skill, 
Harley and Bolingbroke had proved no match for the French 
diplomatists, and that the concessions which they had obtained 
were a very inadequate return for Marlborough's brilliant 
victories. But we are not now concerned with the English 
side of the account. The question for us is, what was the 
net result of the treaty to I^ouis himself ? The answer clearly 
is, that on a superficial view such result was, in the circum- 
stances, extraordinarily favourable. France had emerged far 
400 



LOUIS XIV 

more easily than was to have been anticipated from a conflict 
which for a time had threatened her very existence. She lost 
no part of her European territory ; her boundaries remained 
as before ; the cession of her claims in America had apparently 
little importance ; and she maintained her prestige by securing 
the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. Externally regarded, indeed, 
she still seemed to keep her premier place among the nations. 
But closer examination shows that after all her losses were 
very considerable. If much of her old glory survived, her 
actual power was practically gone. Nor was this the worst. 
Internally she had suffered terribly from the war. Public 
credit was shattered. Huge burdens of debt had been piled 
up. The desperate expedients — forced loans, paper money, 
incessant increase of taxation — ^by which the Government 
attempted to cope with the financial situation, in the nature 
of things only intensified the evils they were designed to 
remedy. The population had been greatly reduced both by 
the war itself and by the disease and poverty which followed 
in its train. Commerce and industry were ruined. lyarge 
portions of the country were desolate and the peasant classes 
were on the edge of starvation. Such was the price which 
the nation had to pay for its monarch's ambitions, and the 
consequence was precisely what was to have been expected. 
The outburst of popular loyalty which had followed lyouis* 
appeal quickly spent its force. It would be almost an ana- 
chronism to speak as yet of any public spirit in France. But 
though the masses of the people had little chance of ex- 
pressing their feelings and no chance at all of translating 
them into practical form, unrest and sullen discontent were 
universal. 

The clouds of national disaster thus gathered about Louis' 
closing years. Other troubles of a more personal character 
added to the growing gloom. His son, Ivouis the Dauphin, 
now a man of fifty, died of smallpox during the great epidemic 
which ravaged Europe in 171 1. He was the only survivor of 
the King's legitimate children. The Dauphin's eldest son, 
the Duke of Burgundy, an intelligent and public-spirited 

2 C 401 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

prince of whom high hopes were entertained/ succumbed to 
maUgnant fever the next year, only a week after his wife, 
Adelaide of Savoy, who had been a great favourite of lyouis. 
Then their eldest son, the Duke of Brittany, followed them to 
the grave, leaving a second son, I^ouis, Duke of Anjou, born in 
1710, as heir to the throne. These domestic afflictions deeply 
affected the old King, whose own health was by this time 
sadly shaken. In the summer of 1715 he was attacked by 
an ulcer in the leg. Badly treated by the Court physician, 
the disease soon spread ; during August he grew steadily 
worse ; and on September i death relieved him from his 
sufferings. 

lyouis faced the end with characteristic dignity and complete 
composure. So long as consciousness remained he was still 
unmistakably the King. *' I thought," he said to those about 
him", almost at the last, " that it would be more difficult to 
die." All through his painful illness, and especially when 
all hope of recovery had been abandoned, his mind was 
constantly occupied with religion. His only anxiety was for 
the forgiveness of his sins. He prayed much and earnestly ; 
found great comfort in the rites of the Church ; and told 
Mme de Maintenon that his one consolation in leaving her 
was the hope of a happy reunion in eternity. 

Yet it is evident that he felt regret, perhaps even something 
like remorse, as he looked back over his long career. " Death," 
said Madame to him, '' is difficult for those only who have 
restitution to make." *' Ah," was his reply, " in the matter 
of restitution I owe none as an individual, but for all that I 
owe to the kingdom I hope in the mercy of God." ^ He had 
the little Dauphin, the future I^ouis XV, brought to his bedside 
and in the advice which he gave him the note of self-reproach 
is very clear. " My dear child, you are about to become the 
greatest king in the world. Never forget the obligations which 
you have to God. Do not imitate me in my wars. Try to 

1 He had been the pupil of F^nelon, and it was for his instruction that the 
Aventures de Telemague were written. 

2 Journal de Dangeau, t. iii, pp. 112, 113. 

402 



LOUIS XIV 

maintain peace always with your neighbours, and to help 
[soulagerl your people as much as you possibly can, as I have 
had the misfortune not to be able to do owing to necessities 
of State. -Follow always good counsels, and remember that 
it is to God that you owe all that you are." 

So died I^ouis le Grand, within a few days of his seventy- 
seventh birthday, and after a reign of seventy-two years. 
For half a century he had been a magnificent figure on the 
w^orld's stage, and he transmitted a magnificent name to 
future times — a name which has power over the imagination 
still. Hence the glory which even to-day clings about his 
memory in the pages of those historians who are dazzled by 
the brilliancy of his presence and immediate surroundings, and 
whose attention is fixed rather on Versailles than on France. 
But the splendour grows dim when we remember that despite 
his repeated boast that he was a Frenchman even more than 
a king, he had ruthlessly sacrificed the welfare of his people 
to the satisfaction of his personal ambitions. To his pane- 
gyrists, w^ho praise his reign as the most wonderful in history, 
it is sufficient answer that with almost unparalleled oppor- 
tunities to show the world what a great king could really be, 
he left the realm he had ruled so long worn out, disheartened, 
saddled with debt, crippled in its resources, steeped in misery, 
and seething with discontent. In the light of after events it 
is easy to see that by his despotism and misgovernment he 
sowed the seeds of the Revolution. 



403 



CHAPTER VII 

'LE GRAND SIECLE' 

WE must now glance rapidly at French culture during 
the period covered by the reigns of lyouis XIII and 
Ivouis XIV, which French historians call ' le Grand 
Siecle.' It must be understood, however, that we shall here 
confine ourselves to such aspects of a very large subject as have 
direct interest for us in connexion with our general narrative. 

The Transformation of Society 

It has been pointed out by I^anson that " the organization 
of th'e aristocratic class into a societe mondaine " — in other 
words, the transformation of the feudal nobility into a noblesse 
de cour, with new intellectual interests and new ideals of life — 
was one of the chief facts in the social history of the age of 
lyouis XIII. The establishment of such a society having its 
roots in the Court and the capital exerted a dominating influence 
over literature and art. It meant the first step in the centrali- 
zation of culture as an inevitable sequel to the centralization 
of government ; and this centralization was in turn largely 
responsible for- the complete triumph of classicism. 

One important result of the new social conditions was the 
rise of the salons, which played so conspicuous a part in the 
evolution of manners and taste during the first half of the 
seventeenth century. The most celebrated of these was that 
presided over by Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise of Ram- 
bouillet, and afterward by her daughter Julie d'Angennes, 
in the Hotel de Rambouillet, in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du- 
Louvre, not far from the Palais-Royal. The fame of this 
salon continued for more than fifty years — roughly, from 1610 
to 1664, though its most brilliant period extended only till 
404 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

about 1645, during which time it was frequented by most 
of the ' lions * and ' lionesses ' of the day and was the great 
centre of the literary life of the metropolis. The influence of 
these salons was at first in various ways for good. The ten- 
dency which they represented and strengthened was one toward 
real refinement, and was much needed at a time when manners 
were still characterized by the rudeness bred by many years 
of war and social disturbance. They sought to substitute 
the tone of the drawing-room for that of the camp, to check 
coarseness of behaviour and vulgarity of speech, to introduce 
an interest in intellectual things, to purify the language and 
foster the art of conversation. Even the luxury in which 
they indulged — as in the chambre bleue of Arthenice,^ with its 
many lamps, its art treasures, its perfumed air, its magnificent 
baskets of flowers ^ — was not without its aesthetic effect. But 
in course of time the primary movement spent its force, the 
period of debased imitation set in, and all sorts of extrava- 
gances supervened. From about 1650 onward bureaux d' esprit 
sprang up in large numbers in Paris and in many provincial 
cities, in the ranks alike of the aristocracy and the wealthier 
bourgeoisie, and in these the principles and habits of the first 
great salons were exaggerated and travestied till they lost all 
semblance with their originals. Then began the mania for 
the absurdest affectations — ^for gallantry of the most strained 
and vapidly sentimental kind ; for an ultra-refinement of 
manners which deliberately repudiated everything suggestive 
of naturalness and simplicity ; for over-subtlety of taste and 
for a preciosity in language which, rejecting intelligibility as 
the business of the ' vulgar herd,' soon degenerated into a 
ridiculous jargon. This was the stage reached in the history 
of the decay of the salons when Moliere, then just established 
in Paris, produced in 1659 ^is sparkling little satire, Les 
Precieuses ridicules. 

The general influence of the salons on literature was of course 

^ That is, Mme de Rambouillet, Arth^nice being an anagram of Catherine. 
2 See the description in Mile de Scud^ry's Le Grand Cyrus, 8e Partie, 
lyivrel. 

405 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

similar to that which they exerted on manners. As it was 
fundamentally a feminine influence — for the new developments 
in society were accompanied by the rise of women for a time 
into a position of acknowledged supremacy — it told in the 
direction of delicacy and fastidiousness of taste. The result 
was the practical elimination of both the licence and the 
pedantry by which the literature of the sixteenth century had 
been characterized, though, as an offset to these gains, together 
with the licence and the pedantry much of the old vigour and 
raciness also disappeared. But though the salons thus left 
their mark on the tone and style of contemporary literature 
their direct effect upon it was very small. Such effect is to 
be sought chiefly in the lighter kinds of poetry — as in that of 
Voiture, long one of the principal ornaments of the Hotel 
de Rambouillet — and in the prolix romances of Honore d'Urfe 
{AsWde, 1610-19), Gomberville (Polixandre, 1632), I^a Cal- 
pren^de {Cassandre, 1642-45 ; Cleopdtre, 1647), and Mile de 
Scudery {Le Grand Cyrus, 1649-53 ; Clelie, 1654-61), in whose 
interminable pages, with their exaggerated gallantry, their 
high-flown sentiment, and their casuistry of love, a generation 
of precieuses saw an ideal representation of themselves. These 
romances for a time enjoyed an astonishing popularity, even 
outside the limits of their special public ; they were eagerly 
read by every one who read anything at all, and were univer- 
sally regarded '' comme des chefs-d'oeuvre de notre langue." ^ 
But before long they inspired reaction in the form of the 
inevitable burlesque. As early as 1622, in his Vraie Histoire 
comique de Francion, and five years later in his Berger extrava- 
gant, Charles Sorel began to parody the roman a la mode, as 
a little more than a century before Cervantes in Spain had 
parodied the romances of chivalry. But Scarron's Roman 
comique (1649), ^ lively tale of the adventures of a company 
of strolling players, is the masterpiece of this particular move- 
ment. From such a work as this, with its vivid pictures of 
provincial manners, the transition was easy to the realistic 
story of ' vulgar ' life as represented in the Roman bourgeois 

^ Boileau, Les Hiros de Roman : Discours. 
406 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

(1666) of Furetiere. A little later Mme de I^a Fayette's 
Princesse de Cleves marks the transformation of the romance 
of gallantry into the psychological novel of love (1678). 

The French Academy 

Incidentally the establishment of the salons led to one 
result of the utmost importance in the subsequent history of 
French culture. A small group of men, following the example 
of the ladies with their receptions, began in 1626 to meet 
regularly at the house of one of their number, the King's 
secretary, Valentin Conrart, for literary discussion and the 
interchange of views. *' There they conversed familiarly, as 
. though on the occasion of an ordinary visit, and if any one 
of the company had produced a work, as often happened, he 
willingly communicated it to the others, who freely gave him 
their opinion of it." ^ One of this little society, Boisrobert, 
carried information of its proceedings to Richelieu, who, 
piquing himself on his literary tastes, and realizing the advan- 
tage of having such a body of men of letters at his disposal, 
offered to organize them into a public institution with an 
official status. This was the origin of the Academic Fran9aise, 
definitely established under letters patent from lyouis XIII 
in January 1635. As Matthew Arnold has said in his well- 
known essay The Literary Influence of Academies, Richelieu 
" designed his new creation to do duty as a supreme court of 
literature," as "a sovereign organ of the highest literary 
opinion," and as " a recognized authority in matters of intel- 
lectual tone and taste." Of its influence as such for good 
and evil this is not the place to speak. The only point which 
we have here to emphasize is that the foundation of the 
Academy represents the final stage in the development of 
absolutism in the field of culture. With it the age of authority 
in literature definitely began. An artificial unity — ^the unity 
of classicism — ^was imposed on literature as by an inexorable 
law from without, and individuality was subjected to repres- 
sive rule. One of the Academy's first acts was to condemn 
* Pellisson, Histoire de V Acadimie. 

407 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Corneille's waywardness in the composition of Le Cid. Its 
principal task for many years was the preparation of a dictionary 
which would fix and standardize the language and protect it 
against the encroachments of eccentricity. 

The Influence of the Court in Literature 

Though the salons had themselves marked the movement 
toward centralization, yet, like the literature in general of 
the first half of the seventeenth century — like the romans 
d'aventures, for example, and the greater plays of Corneille — 
they had exhibited much of the individualistic spirit of the 
Fronde. This spirit, however, now disappeared entirely when 
under I^ouis XIV the influence of the salons was displaced by 
that of the Court, and even -the capital became intellectually 
a suburb of Versailles. During the great days of the ' Roi 
Soldi ' — ^the days when the supremacy of the Crown was finally 
placed beyond challenge, when the Parliaments were silenced 
and the once haughty nobles were reduced to pliant courtiers — 
it was Versailles which gave the law in literature as in every- 
thing else. The result is shown particularly in the so-called 
classic tragedy of the Grand Siecle, which now reached its 
formal perfection in the work of Racine. In this classic 
tragedy, as has been well said, '' the personages have to speak, 
not as befits their real feelings, character, and situations, but 
as is proper in the presence of a king and a court ; not truth, 
nature, and beauty, but etiquette is the highest law of dramatic 
art." ^ Goethe, referring specifically to Racine, put his finger 
on the same point : "I can easily conceive," says Wilhelm 
Meister, " how people of high standing and exalted rank 
must value a poet who has painted so excellently and truly 
the circumstances of their lofty station. ... In reading his 
plays, I can always figure to myself the poet as living at a 
splendid court, with a great king before his eyes, in constant 
intercourse with distinguished persons." ^ Even in comedy, 
always in the nature of things more popular and independent 

^ Strauss, Voltaire : Seeks Vortrdge, p. 74. 

2 Wilhelm Meister' s Apprenticeship (trans. Carlyle), Book III, chap. viii. 

408 








6t. MoivIe;re; 



62. Racine 





63. BossuET 



64. Fe;nei,on 



408 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

than tragedy, the Court had become the final arbiter of taste. 
" fitudiez la cour et connoissez la ville," was Boileau's advice 
to the comic writer,^ and he praises Moliere for having followed 
it. And indeed Moliere himself was fully aware of the import- 
ance of the doctrine, however much he might at times be 
inclined to demur to it. In his Critique de V^cole des Femmes 
Dorante tells I^ycidas that *' the great test of all your comedies 
is the judgment of the Court ; it is the taste of the Court that 
you must study if you would learn the art of succeeding." 

Absolutism and Classicism 

The culmination of classicism in French literature during 
the seventeenth century must therefore be regarded as some- 
thing more than the triumph of certain formal principles 
heralded in poetry by Malherbe, who ** reduisit la Muse aux 
regies du devoir," and codified by Chapelain and '' the law- 
giver of Parnassus," Boileau. It may from our point of 
view be interpreted as the necessary concomitant of centraliza- 
tion and the establishment of autocracy in the State. The 
literature of the Grand Siecle was very brilliant, and however 
little it may on the whole appeal to our present tastes, we can 
still admire its fine balance, its courtly elegance, its combined 
force and dignity. At the same time it is impossible not to 
see that it is stamped to its disadvantage with the impress 
of the environment by which it was shaped. Its unity was 
obtained at the cost of originality and independence ; the 
restraints to which it submitted led inevitably to the suppres- 
sion of individuality and the life which individuality alone 
can give to art. 

Yet the spirit of revolt against these restraints was by no 
means dead. It must be remembered that first the salons 
and after them the Academy had exercised a democratic 
influence in one important direction : the salons by intro- 
ducing men of letters — even those who, like Voiture, were 
" without a grandfather " — on a familiar footing into the 
society of the nobility, the Academy by giving ofiicial recog- 

1 L'Art poetique. Chant III. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

nition to an aristocracy of intellect. Moreover, most of the 
writers to whom I^ouis XIV extended his special favour — • 
Racine, Moliere, Boileau, for example — ^belonged to the bour- 
geoisie.^ These are facts to be noted, though, save as they 
show the extent to which literature was now obtaining an 
independent standing, their immediate significance is not very 
great. Meanwhile, quite early in the century we can detect 
the beginnings of a bourgeois reaction against the consolidating 
classic tradition, and this reaction we can follow as the century 
runs its course in the transformation of romance, on the stage 
(as in much of the comedy of Moliere), in the C antes and 
Fables of I^a Fontaine (who, like Moliere, enriched his style 
from a popular vocabulary unacknowledged by the Academy), 
and, despite their classic - derivation, in Les Caracteres of 
La Bruy^re. It was, however, in one curious episode of the 
cldsing part of lyouis XIV's reign — ^the period of disaster and 
decline — ^that a tendency toward the breaking up of the 
artificial unity of the classical regime was first clearly apparent. 
The episode in question is known in French literary history 
as the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, and its import- 
ance lies in the fact that the supremacy of Greek and Latin 
antiquity, which was one of the corner-stones of classicism, 
was now for the first time definitely challenged. It is a piquant 
detail that the controversy, which for some eighteen years 
divided French critics into two hostile camps, originated in 
a -poem — Le Siecle de Louis XIV — ^which Charles Perrault 
read to the Academy on January 27, 1687, to glorify the age 
of the Grand Monarque. Such a purpose itself was of course 
eminently laudable. But it happened that Perrault was so 
led away by enthusiasm for his subject that in a moment of 
special temerity he actually ventured to compare, and to its 
advantage, the age of Louis with the most brilliant epoch of 
Roman history : 

^ Cp. ante, p. 370. He was in fact glad to strengthen the influence of 
such men as a counterpoise to that of the aristocracy. " Here I am," he 
once remarked, " dining|with Moliere, whom my officers do not think good 
enough^^company for them." 

410 



I 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

La belle antiquity fut toujours v^n^rable, 
Mais je ne cms jamais qu'elle fut adorable. 
Je vois les anciens sans plier les genoux. 
lis sont grands, il est vrai mais hommes comme nous ; 
Et Ton peut comparer, sans craindre d'etre in juste, 
-Le Si^cle de I^ouis au beau Si^cle d' Auguste. 

It was this bold claim on behalf of the present against the 
past which was the immediate cause of the outburst which 
followed. Of course the discussion led to no definite results. 
But the doctrine of the divine right of the ancients was badly 
shaken by it ; the complacency of dogmatism was disturbed ; 
while the conception of the relativity of literature which was 
now broached, and which was manifestly fatal to the old theory 
of finality, brought wdth it a bracing sense of the possibility 
of progress, which in turn was certain to foster the spirit of 
individual experiment and adventure. We should doubtless 
be guilty of over-ingenuity in attempting to postulate any 
direct connexion between this revolt against the unity of 
classicism and the changing political conditions of the closing 
decades of Louis XIV's reign. But it is at least suggestive 
that as the consolidation of the principles of classicism into 
a dogmatic creed was coincident with the firm establishment 
of absolute monarchy, so the rise of disruptive forces in literature 
synchronized with the beginnings of its decline. 

The Art of the Grand Siecle 

Classicism and the aristocratic spirit meanwhile triumphed 
in the art of the Grand Siecle even more completely than in 
its literature, and more than literature that art was characterized 
not only by the superficial elegance and the uniformity which 
were the notes of the current taste, but also by the concomitant 
coldness and pomposity. Here too the influence of the Court, 
especially after the accession of lyouis XIV, was clearer and 
more direct. Though it was an age of great activity in building 
both in Paris and throughout the country, the fine arts owed 
almost everything to the munificence and extravagance of 
the King. Merely the patron of men of letters, he was the 
chief employer of the most famous architects, painters, and 

411 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

sculptors of the day, whose talents were largely absorbed by 
work on his innumerable palaces, while the nobility and wealthy 
magistrates and merchants who also engaged their services 
or the services of their pupils or imitators naturally fashioned 
their taste on that of his Majesty. The tendency to uniformity 
was further strengthened by the foundation of the Academy 
of Painting and Sculpture in 1648 and of that of Architecture 
in 1671. Hence, as we should anticipate, tile art of the period 
is everywhere stamped with the marks of the dominant sump- 
tuous yet frigid Court style. We can see this in the architec- 
tural work of the younger Mansart in the vast palace of 
Versailles and the chateaux of the Grand Trianon and Marly ; 
of Claude Perrault (brother of Charles) in the colonnade of 
the Ivouvre and the Paris -Observatory ; of lyiberal Bruant in 
the Hotel and chapel of the Invalides. We .can see it equally 
iu the sculpture of Pierre Puget, " le Michel- Ange fran9ais," of 
Girardon, of Antoine Coysevox and his pupils Nicolas and 
Guillaume Coustou, and in the grandiose canvases of Eustache 
IvC Sueur and Charles lyC Brun, Louis* premier Court painter 
and for many years his official Director of Fine Arts.^ But 
as art was thus more closely connected than literature with 
the personality of the King, so in turn it registered more 
rapidly the waning of the King's power. When political and 
financial disaster made it impossible for lyouis to continue 
to lavish enormous sums on the satisfaction of his own private 
tastes, his influence over artists necessarily declined. This meant 
the emancipation of art from autocratic control. 

Music 

A few words may be added on the music of the Grand 
Siecle. Lyouis XIII was passionately fond of music — a taste 
which he transmitted to his son — and ballets, or entertainments 
in which singing, dancing, and spectacle were combined, were 
a favourite diversion of his Court. Under Mazarin a new 

1 It should perhaps be pointed out in passing that the two really great 
French painters of the seventeenth century, Claude Gel^e, whom we know 
as Claude I^orrain, and Nicolas Poussin, spent their lives in Italy, and hardly 
belong to the history of French art. 

412 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

type of musical drama was introduced in the Italian opera, 
but this did not displace the older native form, which was 
brought to perfection by the Florentine Giovanni Battista 
lyulli, who wrote music for some of the comedies-ballets of 
Moliere. Such amusements continued to be popular during 
the early years of lyouis XIV's reign, and many of the great 
lords and ladies, and even the sovereign himself, were accus- 
tomed to take part in them. In 1669, however, the Abbe 
Perrin obtained from the King a patent for the establishment 
of a Royal Academy of Music, and under the influence of this 
French grand opera arose on the Italian model. Perrin 
himself provided the libretto of what may be regarded as the 
first work in the new style, the Pomone (1671) of Robert 
Cambert. But lyulli, who was quick to perceive the possibilities 
of this style, and who enjoyed under royal patent a monopoly 
for the production of opera in Paris from 1672 till his death 
4n 1687, is rightly considered its real founder. Under him 
and his immediate successors, Colasse, Charpentier, and 
Campra, grand opera flourished greatly in the capital. Their 
efforts did not, indeed, result in a truly national school of 
music, which did not come into existence till the appearance 
of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733. But it may be 
noted that from the first French opera was distinguished by 
its attention to dramatic rhetoric and declamation, a feature 
in which we may detect the influence of the tragic stage. On 
the whole, the music of the period, like its other arts, reflected 
the taste of the Court, upon which in the main it depended, 
and as a consequence it was marked by the same general 
characteristics of classicism. 

Science and Philosophy 

Science as a matter of course was far less affected by royal 
patronage than either literature or art, but it may still be 
noted that its activity was stimulated and its work organized 
by the foundation of the Academy of Sciences in 1666. In 
addition to a considerable number of brilliant native-born 
investigators in the various branches of research — among them 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Boulliau, Picard, Lef^vre, Tourne- 
fort, and Mariotte — several foreign scientists of great distinc- 
tion — notably Cassini, the first Director of the Observatory, 
Huyghens, and Roemer — whom Louis invited to Paris, contri- 
buted in no small degree to the intellectual glory of his reign. 
By the very nature of its objects and methods, however, the 
science of the seventeenth century, like that of all other times, 
stood for freedom and independence, and was thus implicitly, 
if not actively, the enemy of absolutism. The same remark 
may be made, though with some qualification, about the 
philosophy of the time, as represented in particular by the 
work of Descartes, whose Discours de la Methode (1637) occupies 
an epoch-making place in the history of thought. It is true 
that in its subjection of feeling and imagination to the rule 
of reason and in its attempt to suppress the vagaries of indi- 
vidual speculation the spirit of Cartesianism was at one with 
that of classicism ; indeed, some historians have gone so far 
as *to regard it as an accessory influence in the development of 
the classical ideal. ^ Yet its deeper significance seems to me 
to lie in the fact that it is the first attempt made by any modern 
thinker to work out a philosophic system on the basis of pure 
reason and in entire independence of scholastic tradition and 
theological dogma. The importance of this point will be 
understood if we remember that the University of Paris was 
still the fanatical supporter of the old Aristotelianism, and that 
later, under I^ouis XIV, the teaching of Cartesianism was pro- 
hibited throughout France. In the same way the revolt against 
Aristotelianism in the Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aris- 
totelem (1624) of Pierre Gassendi is also historically noteworthy. 

Religion : Jansenism 

Such protest against despotic authority in thought reappears 
in a different form in the religious history of the seventeenth 

^ As the philosophy of John lyocke, which practically displaced that of 
Descartes during the eighteenth century, was undoubtedly an accessory 
influence in breaking up that ideal. Cp. Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philo- 
sophy, pp. 80-81. 



LE GRAND SIECLE 

century. Of the revolt of Protestantism and its suppression 
enough has already been said. But a short account must be 
given of another movement which, though only remotely con- 
nected with Protestantism, possesses from our present point of 
view something of the same interest. 

In 1638 a Dutch theologian, Cornelius Jansen, died at 
Ypres, of which place he was bishop, leaving behind him 
the manuscript of a bulky treatise, entitled Augustinus, which 
was published two years later. Primarily an elaborate com- 
mentary on the writings of Augustine, this work incidentally 
showed that the teachings of that great father regarding 
Grace, Free Will, and Predestination were at variance with 
accepted Catholic dogma, and especially with the ideas of 
the Jesuits. For this reason the Jesuits at once rose in arms 
against it and succeeded in securing its condemnation as 
heretical, first by the Sorbonne and afterward by the Pope. 
Jansen's views none the less spread through France and 
gained a good many partisans, who were attracted to them 
not only on the doctrinal side, but also because their ascetic 
spirit provided a corrective to Jesuitical laxity. The great 
centre of Jansenism was, however, the community of Port- 
Royal. A convent of that name belonging to the order of 
Cistercian nuns had been founded during the reign of Philippe- 
Auguste — an absurd legend said by that king himself — some 
eighteen miles west of Paris. In 1608 this was reformed and 
reorganized under the most rigorous discipline by the Abbess 
Jacqueline-Marie Arnauld, better known by her official title 
of ' lya Mere Angelique.* Then in 1626 the nuns were trans- 
ferred to a new convent in Paris, while the old establishment — 
Port-Royal-des-Champs, as it was called — ^was occupied by a 
lay community which included among its many men of light 
and leading several members of the large and distinguished 
Arnauld family,^ Claude I^ancelot, Fontaine, Antoine L^e Maitre, 

^ One of these, Antoine, ' le grand Arnauld,' was the son of Antoine, an 
advocate of great eloquence, who had pleaded on behalf of the Parliament 
of Paris in 1593 for the expulsion of the Jesuits on a charge of having insti- 
gated an attempt on the life of Henri IV. This the Jesuits never forgot or 
forgave ; hence their special animosity against the whole Arnauld family. 

415 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Pierre Nicole, Jean Duvergier de Hauranne — otherwise M. de 
Saint-Cyran — ^wlio had been a personal friend of Jansen, and 
last, but not least, the great Pascal. The solitaires spent 
many hours of each day in prayer, meditation, and spiri- 
tual exercises, but a portion of their time was also given 
to manual labour and to the work of a school attached 
to their establishment, for the use of which in the course of 
time many well-known educational manuals were produced. 
This community came presently to be identified with Jansenism, 
and out of it sprang that masterpiece of polemical literature, 
which is also one of the foundation books of French prose, 
Pascal's Lettres provinciales, written in 1656 and 1657 during 
the period of their author's retreat. But though the Jesuits 
were unable to answer this merciless exposure of their casuistry, 
they had still the weight 'of authority on their side. On the 
condemnation of the Augustinus by Rome in 1650 the Jan- 
senists had indeed submitted, but they had taken the ground 
that the five heretical propositions alleged to have been extracted 
fT6m the book were not actually to be found in it. But this 
view, set forth by Antoine Arnauld, was in turn condemned 
by the Sorbonne, who, moreover, expelled Arnauld himself 
and some sixty other doctors suspected of Jansenist opinions, 
and in 1656 a further decree against the Augustinus was obtained 
from Alexander VII. By this time, though Jansenism showed 
no signs of becoming widely popular or influential, it had 
revealed a stubborn tenacity of life, and had already begun to 
arouse the wrath of the civil authorities, who were quite ready 
to be persuaded that even if it were not actually Calvinism in 
disguise,^ in its case, as in the case of Protestantism, inde- 
pendence in religion was certain to be associated with inde- 
pendence in politics. Hence when Louis XIV came to power 
he was already strongly biased against it. In 1664 Perefixe, 
Archbishop of Paris, endeavoured to obtain a settlement of 

1 This was a favourite charge of the Jesuits. As a matter of fact the 
leaders of Jansenism were devout Catholics. The one point of connexion 
between their theology and that of the Calvinists was the Augustinian doctrine 
of grace. 
A.16 



Lfi GRAND SIECLE 

the acrimonious controversy, but was thwarted by the unex- 
pected resistance of the nuns of Port-Royal, who refused to 
sign the formulary acknowledging the actual presence in 
Jansen's book of the heresies already condemned by Rome. 
Thereupon the recalcitrants were deprived of the sacraments 
and otherwise punished. Persecution failing to bring them 
to terms. Pope Alexander proposed a commission of inquiry 
into the whole matter, but this was resented by the King and 
many of the clergy as an infringement of the rights of the 
Gallican Church. Then in 1669 Clement IX, Alexander's 
successor, restored '^ the peace of the Church " by a compro- 
mise under which, while the five heretical propositions still 
in question were again condemned, the question whether they 
were or were not to be found in the Augustinus was allowed to 
pass under '' reverent silence." But the peace thus secured 
was only temporary. Many of the more rigid Jansenists, 
under the leadership of Arnauld, presently emigrated to the 
I/Ow Countries, while the Jesuits, tireless in their hostility 
to the hated sect, as they gained increasing power over the 
King, so wrought upon his growing bigotry that at length, 
it was said, he came to hate a Jansenist more even than a 
Protestant or an atheist. Such was his mood when in 1705 
theological controversy broke out afresh over a book of reflec- 
tions on the New Testament by Pere Quesnel of the Oratory. 
A systematic persecution of the Jansenists followed, in the 
course of which Port-Royal was razed to the ground, its 
community dispersed, and its work brought to an end. Finally, 
under the influence of his Jesuit confessor, Pere I^a Chaise, 
lyouis was induced to appeal to the Pope, Clement XI, who in 
1713 issued the bull Unigenitus, condemning loi propositions 
extracted from Quesnel's pages. This, however, led to further 
trouble. Cardinal de Noailles, now Archbishop of Paris, who 
had been a warm admirer of the book, refused to publish the 
bull in his diocese, and even prepared to enter upon a struggle 
in respect of it with King and Pope. The death of I^ouis 
left the controversy still unsettled. But meanwhile the last 
years of his reign had witnessed the practical destruction of 

2D 417 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Jansenism as well as of Protestantism throughout the country. 
In the sphere of religion the King's fanaticism impelled him 
at all costs to assert his will for the maintenance of that unity 
which had elsewhere been disturbed by the waning of his 
prestige. 

One other movement of French religious thoughtJTduring 
the seventeenth century, though of relatively little import- 
ance, deserves passing mention — ^that known as Quietism. The 
leading spirit in this form of mysticism was Mme Guyon (1648- 
1717), who was twice imprisoned in the Bastille (1688, 1695- 
1702) on charges of sharing the heresies of the Spanish mystic 
Molinos. Fenelon, who had been touched by her influence, 
and whose generous nature had been stirred by the cruelty 
of the outcry against her, stepped forward in her defence, and 
tins brought him into collision with his former friend Bossuet. 
The bitter quarrel between these two famous prelates for a 
time greatly agitated the Court, but ultimately Bossuet pre- 
vailed, and through lyouis obtained the Pope's condemnation 
of Fenelon's position. In this controversy we have yet one 
more phase of the struggle for liberty against the forces of 
absolutism. Quietism, like our own Quakerism, was essentially 
individualistic, and though in political theory Fenelon was 
almost as strong a supporter of autocracy as Bossuet himself,^ 
in this particular case, as it happened, he stood indirectly for 
the rights of the conscience against Bossuet, here as always 
the upholder of tradition and authority. 

^ See Fenelon's plea for paternalism in his Plan de Gouvernemenf and Essai 
philosophique sur le Gouvernemenf civil, and cp. the Politique tirde de I'J&criture 
sainte, in which Bossuet deduces the system of Louis XIV from the Bible. 



418 




Bruges 
ais<l' Dun)*rque / Dp,,. 

/\.. loudfnarde/ ^"^ 

ArreTs ''^e^'i^^^ 

^'■■■-H..,4.?. -C-.:, 'JJ 

v_/ Vervtna ' 




jcataiogneJ I 



OCEAN 



ATLANTI Q UE 




LA FRANCE 

sous 
L'AWCIEN REGIME 



50 100 ISO 200 




CHAPTER VIII 

LOUIS XV 

I. THE RKGKNCY 
1715-1723 

OUIS XV was a child of five and a half when his great- 
grandfather's death placed him upon the throne, and 
France was therefore once more, and for the third 
time in succession, faced by the problems of a minorit}^ As 
the young King's mother was dead, the duties of the regency 
devolved by long-standing tradition upon his nearest male 
relative, Philippe, Duke of Orleans.^ lyouis XIV, however, 
had distrusted the Duke on account both of his moral character 
and of his political views, which were openly opposed to his 
own, and he had therefore sought by will to impose restrictions 
upon his authority. By that document, executed in August 
1714, a Council of Regency was appointed in which the Regent 
himself was to have one vote only, while the important rdles 
of custodian of the sovereign and commander of the household 
troops were entrusted to his personal enemy, the Duke of 
Maine, one of I^ouis' bastard children by Mme de Montespan. 
But this attempt on the part of the Great Monarch to rule 
France from his grave failed as completely as that of his father 
had done seventy-two years before. At seven in the morning 
of September 2, the day after his death, the Parliament of Paris 
met to read and consider the will which had been confided to 
its keeping. Thereupon the Duke of Orleans lodged a protest 
against it, taking the ground that its provisions conflicted with 

1 Philip V of Spain, the King's uncle, was in fact his nearest male relative, 
but he had renounced all his rights as a French prince under the Treaty of 
Utrecht. 

419 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

precedent and with the specific promises of the late King to 
himself. The Duke of Maine made a feeble effort to maintain 
his position, but his rival easily carried the day. Without a 
single dissentient voice the Parliament annulled the will, and 
Orleans was declared Regent with unlimited powers. In return 
for its unanimous support Orleans restored to the Parliament 
the right of remonstrance before the registration of edicts, which 
had been in abeyance for more than forty years. 

The contempt for the memory of the once all-potent King 
shown by this utter disregard of his last wishes is indicative 
not only of the spirit of the Parliament but also of the popular 
feeling of the hour. The sun which at its meridian had blazed 
with unparalleled splendour .had set amid the black clouds of 
national disaster. France had long been weary of one who, 
as i bitter satirical poem put it, had caused her to shed so many 
tears during his lifetime that she had none left for his death. 
The ^people groaned under the burdens which his selfish lust 
for power had imposed upon them, and were ready to welcome 
any change which gave even the faintest promise of relief. 
Whatever otherwise might be thought of the Regent, therefore, 
he had this much in his favour, that he was known to be hostile 
to the principles and policy of the regime which, happily for 
the country, had now at last come to an end. 

The Regent : His Character and Policy 

In personal appearance and in many of his characteristics 
Philippe d'Orleans resembled, as he loved to be told, his 
famous grandfather, Henri IV. Witty, affable, good-hearted, 
easy of access, fond of company, free from prejudices, im- 
patient of formality and tradition, he was richly endowed 
with the qualities which make for popularity and smooth the 
way to success. He was also a man of parts and culture and 
was interested in many things — literature, music, painting, 
mechanics, chemistry, medicine — of which he was wont to 
discourse with the ease and assurance of a connoisseur. His 
political opinions, too, were marked by unusual breadth and 
enlightenment. As he told the Parliament of Paris when he 
420 



LOUIS XV 

demanded the abrogation of his uncle's will, his one desire 
as Regent would be *' to relieve the people, re-establish the 
finances, maintain peace at home and abroad, restore union 
and tranquillity in the Church, and work with all the applica- 
tion of whit^h I am capable for ever^^thing that can render the 
State prosperous " ; and though, of course, such language 
may be heavily discounted as rhetoric for the occasion, there 
is no reason to doubt that it was the honest expression of his 
aims. That he was a friend of toleration is shown by the 
fact that he at once released many victims of ecclesiastical 
bigotry who had been thrown into the Bastille and Vincennes 
under lettres de cachet during the closing years of the late 
King's reign. It is even probable that he would have re- 
introduced religious liberty into France by a revival of the 
Edict of Nantes, had he not been dissuaded by the arguments 
of his friend the upright but narrow-minded Duke of Saint- 
Simon.^ As it was, he yielded in this all-important matter 
against his own better judgment, and in so doing gave signal 
proof of that radical weakness of nature which was always 
to make his rule ineffective. Excellent as were his intentions, 
he lacked the concentration and the strength of purpose neces- 
sary to make his will prevail. Hence, despite his advanced 
opinions and his genuine desire for reform, he accomplished 
little of lasting good during the eight years of his administra- 
tion. To some extent also the scandalous profligacy of his 
private life was an additional element in his failure. Instead 
of concealing his vices he took a cynical pleasure in flaunting 
them before the public gaze, and even the none too sensitive 
taste of his contemporaries was shocked by the orgies in which 
he and his roues indulged at the Palais-Royal. How far his 
personal influence and the credit of his office suffered directly 
in consequence may be a question ; but it is certain that his 
excesses undermined both his mental and physical powers and 
brought him to an early grave. 

1 Though at the time of the revocation Saint-Simon had himself seen that 
I/onis XIV's policy was a mistake. His arguments, such as they are, are set 
forth in his M^moires, t. xii, pp. 83 ff . 

421 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The new regime was inaugurated by a sweeping change in 
the political system. Ivouis XIV, as we have seen, had en- 
trusted the executive details of government to six ministers — 
four Secretaries of State, a Chancellor, and a Controller- 
General of Finances. These officials were now replaced by 
seven administrative councils acting under the supreme 
control of the Conseil General de Regence, each composed of 
ten members, and charged respectively with the management 
of the finances, the army, the navy, commerce, domestic 
affairs, foreign affairs, and religion. The object of this in- 
novation was to break down the despotic power which the 
old system had placed in the hands of individual advisers of 
the Crown. For this reason, and because it seemed to provide 
a check upon absolutism, it was regarded by liberal thinkers 
as a step in the right direction. At the same time it really 
rep;resented an aristocratic revival. One feature of lyouis XIV's 
ministerial policy which had been specially objectionable to 
the nobility was the quality of the ministers themselves, who 
had habitually been men of middle-class extraction. Accord- 
ing to the express statement of Saint-Simon, the great champion 
of the aristocracy, by whom the new system had been devised, 
the councils were intended to destroy such predominant 
middle-class influence at the very centre of the State, and to 
lead ultimately to the substitution of the nobility for the 
lawyers and the bourgeoisie. The fate of the scheme was, 
however, sealed before the anticipated results began to appear. 
Many of the aristocratic members of the councils were appointed 
only because for one or another reason the Regent was anxious 
to find places for them, and were utterly unfitted by character 
and training to take any intelligent part in the business confided 
to their charge ; a hopeless incompatibility of temper and aims 
was from the outset apparent between those of the noblesse 
d'epde and those of the noblesse de robe ; trivial disputes 
absorbed the time and energy which should have been given 
to matters of urgent concern ; and, as even Saint-Simon was 
soon forced to admit, the whole plan proved a failure. The 
experiment was, however, continued for three years of ever- 
422 



LOUIS XV 

increasing confusion. Then in 1718 the councils were dissolved 
and the Secretaries of State restored. This return to the 
policy of lyouis XIV was accompanied by a further movement 
of reaction. Encouraged by the declaration of the Regent in 
the session of September 2, the Parliament of Paris had pro- 
ceeded to avail itself of the right of remonstrance in a way 
which brought it into sharp conflict with the Government. 
Recourse was then had to the unfailing ' bed of justice ' 
(August 1718), and the Parliament was reduced to silence. 

The Financial Situation 

The struggle which thus ended in the discomfiture of the 
noblesse de robe arose over the question of the finances, which 
was, at the opening of the Regency, of all questions the one 
most vital to the interests of the country. lyOuis XIV had 
bequeathed to his successor a burden of debt amounting in 
round figures to something like three thousand millions of 
livres, while for the first year of his administration the Regent 
had to face a deficit of 78 millions. So desperate was now the 
outlook that Saint-Simon advised the Government, as the 
shortest cut to safety, to repudiate its obligations and declare 
itself bankrupt. This suggestion the Regent rejected, but he 
found it difficult to propose any other in its place. Then the 
Duke of Noailles, the real power in the Conseil des Finances, 
though not its nominal president, took the matter in hand. 
The expedients which he tried were such as had been used 
many times before. Ofiices and Court appointments were 
suppressed, rentes reduced. Government securities written 
down, the value of the currency lowered on pretext of recoinage, 
and a Chamber of Justice instituted for the control of the 
farmers-general and the punishment of those found guilty of 
fraud. By these measures, several of which, as will be seen, 
were of more than doubtful honesty, some slight improvement 
in the situation was obtained. But it was very slight, and 
the best that Noailles could promise the Regent was that, 
given eleven years of peace and retrenchment, he would 
make the receipts balance the expenditure. Such deferred 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

hope did not satisfy the Regent, who was impatient for im- 
mediate results. After three years of struggle with a problem 
which was really beyond his capacity, Noailles threw up his 
task in disgust. His retirement left the way open for the 
great financial magician of the Regency, the famous John 
lyaw. 

John Law and the ' System ' 

The son of a well-to-do goldsmith, I^aw was born in Edin- 
burgh in 1671. His father gave him a good education, and 
already as a boy he displayed unusual acuteness of mind and 
a special aptitude for mathematics. But these qualities w^ere 
unfortunately combined with a fondness for gambling and 
dissipation. At twenty he .left Edinburgh for lyondon, where 
for a time he lived the life of a fashionable young buck about 
town ; but having killed a man in a duel and barely escaped 
hanging, he sought safety in Amsterdam. There he devoted 
himself with much ardour to the study of banking, as a result 
of which he was led to formulate his theories regarding the 
immediate dependence of wealth on commerce and of commerce 
on speculation. Eager to make these theories public, he 
returned to Edinburgh in 1700 for the express purpose of 
laying them before the Scottish banks. But the Scottish banks 
refused to have anything to do with them, and the disappointed 
projector went back to the Continent. For some years he 
wandered about from country to country, gambling, speculat- 
ing, winning money and spending it as fast as it was won, 
and all the while making futile attempts to interest now this 
Government and now that in his schemes. Finally in 1716 
he drifted again to Paris, where on several former visits he 
had already gained the Regent's favour alike by his intellectual 
brilliancy and by his dissolute habits. It was the moment 
when the finances of France were in such a hopeless state 
that even a more prudent man than the Duke of Orleans 
might well have been ready to give ear to the solicitations of 
one who was so firmly convinced as lyaw undoubtedly was of 
the absolute soundness of his ideas, and who had, moreover, 

424 



LOUIS XV 

such an extraordinary faculty for making them attractive to 
others. The Duke Hstened, was soon persuaded that such 
ideas were at least deserving of a practical trial, and allowed 
his new adviser to have his way. 

It is no longer disputed that, though much that was fallacious 
and chimerical entered into I^aw's grandiose schemes, many 
of his fundamental principles were as true as they were then 
novel. This, however, is a matter which we are not called 
upon here to discuss, as our present concern is simply with 
the actual facts of his experiment and its results. Briefly 
stated, then, his principal object was the institution of an 
enormous national credit system by means of State banks 
and the plentiful use of a paper currency. His argument was 
that the abundance of currency was the ultimate source of a 
nation's wealth, and its deficiency of a nation's poverty, and 
that the multiplication of the circulating medium was there- 
fore the one thing necessary for the general revival of commerce 
and industry. But though the establishment of such a credit 
system was the first step toward the realization of his plans, 
another project of vaster reach and even more revolutionary 
character — a project which, as he told the Regent, would 
'* surprise Europe " — was already in his mind. He looked 
forward to the time when, enriched by its banking enterprises, 
the State itself in its corporate capacity should absorb the 
energies of its citizens and become the chief if not the only 
trading power in the land. 

Law's opening move was modest enough. In May 1716, 
under the authority of letters patent from the Government, he 
started a private bank in his own house, in the Place Louis- 
le-Grand. The functions of this institution were rigorously 
regulated, and at the outset its management was most con- 
servative, the issue of its notes being kept well within the 
limits of its actual capital. As these notes, moreover, were 
good, whenever presented, for their face value on the day of 
issue, they had an advantage over the coinage of the realm, 
which was continually fluctuating owing to the Government's 
unwise tamperings with it, Hence the bank soon disarmed 

425 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

much of the criticism with which it was at first assailed, and 
in particular gained the favour of the merchants by the 
proved utility of its operations. It is true that d'Argenson, 
Noailles' successor in the Conseil des Finances, and the Parlia- 
ment of Paris, were strongly antagonistic to it ; but the pro- 
tection of the Regent made it immune from their attacks and 
it steadily increased in popularity until, in December 1718, 
it was transformed, as the Banque Royale, into a public 
institution with the support and under the control of the 
State. Soon after this, however, ominous changes began to 
appear in its administration. The issue of its notes was 
gradually increased in excess not only of the assets of the 
Bank, but even of the entire coinage of the realm, and such 
notes thus became practically inconvertible, or an actual 
substitute for specie. An edict that all sums above 600 francs 
mu^t henceforth be paid only in gold or notes gave the notes, 
owing to the deficiency of gold, a forced circulation. More- 
over, the character of these notes was altered in one important 
respect. Instead of being definite undertakings on the part 
of the Bank that it would redeem them on presentation at a 
stated value, they became mere promises to pay such and such 
sums in coin, and in this way they were made subject to the 
fluctuations of specie itself. Such changes might well have 
aroused the suspicions of thoughtful people regarding the 
stability of the Government enterprise, but faith in I^aw was 
so strong that for the time being the credit of the Bank did 
not suffer much. 

Meanwhile I;aw had begun to work toward the achievement 
of his vaguer ulterior aims. He had told the Regent that 
he would make his adopted country the supreme commercial 
power in the world, and now that internal credit had been 
re-established he believed that the time had come for the 
demonstration of his grand ideas regarding foreign trade. 
Accordingly in August 1717 he founded under royal letters 
patent, and on the general lines of similar companies in England 
and Holland, the Compagnie d' Occident (commonly called the 
Compagnie du Mississippi) for the development and exploitation 
426 





65- Phii^ippe of Or];f:ans 



66. John Law 





67. Cardinai, Dubois 



68. Cardinai, Ai^bkroni 



426 



LOUIS XV 

of the resourcCvS of the province of lyouisiana.^ For nearly 
two years this company was carefully nursed by him. Then 
he proceeded to extend his operations. In May 1719 he 
obtained the monopoly of trade in the Bast formerly enjoyed 
under francHse by the Compagnie des Indes Orientales and 
the Compagnie de Chine, and amalgamated these enterprises 
with his own under the comprehensive title of the Compagnie 
des Indes. At the same time the Bank and the Company 
were consolidated, I^aw himself becoming the manager of both. 
Nor was the fertility of his brain even yet exhausted. In 
August of the same year the company took over the farming 
of the taxes on an annual payment of 52 million livres and 
undertook to fund the national debt by advancing fifteen 
hundred million livres for its liquidation at an interest of 
3 per cent. Furthermore, the management of the Mint, which 
carried the right of coinage, and the Government monopoly 
of tobacco, were acquired by it. In financing these gigantic 
schemes I^aw exhibited great skill and daring, but the enor- 
mous increase of capital demanded by them compelled him to 
multiply both shares and paper money to an extent which, 
though it seemed justified at the time, was in the long run 
to prove disastrous. For the moment, however, the popular 
mind was fascinated by the possibilities of the ' System,' as 
lyaw's various projects had come collectively to be called. 
His original programme of colonial development and foreign 
commerce was sound enough, and had it been carried out in 
a proper and businesslike spirit its success would probably 
have been assured. But for such success many years of steady 
and patient labour would have been necessary, and people 
whose imaginations had been fired by visions of immediate 
and hitherto undreamed-of wealth were in no mood to wait. 
At the beginning the Company had been viewed with con- 
siderable distrust, and its shares had been taken up so slowly 

1 The colony of I^ouisiana, so named in honour of Irouis XIV, had been 
established by Iva Salle in 1682, but thus far little or nothing had been done 
with it. The city of New Orleans, laid out in 171 7-1 8, was named after the 
Regent. 

427 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

that two years after its organization they were still quoted 
below par. But in the spring of 1719 the entire enterprise 
and the attitude of the public toward it underwent a sudden 
and sensational change. Reports began to circulate of the 
fabulous resources of the Mississippi valley, of its inexhaustible 
mines of gold and silver, of its mountains of precious stones. 
Few people knew anything about the actual conditions of this 
mysterious land beyond the sea ; fewer still took the trouble 
to inquire. It was enough that, in Law's own phrase, *' the 
gates of wealth " were " now open to the world." Avarice 
and credulity went hand in hand, and the most fantastic 
rumours found ready credence. Then the contagious fever 
of speculation broke out and rapidly spread through all classes 
of society from highest to lowest. The shares of the Company 
had been issued at 500 livres, and thus far they had never 
changed hands at that figure. Now they leapt up to 10,000 
livres, to 15,000, to 20,000. While some of those who purchased 
at these inflated prices did so as an investment, even more 
bought only to sell again. Stock gambling thus began on an 
unparalleled scale, and the centre which for the convenience 
of jobbers was established in the Rue Quincampoix (and which 
was in fact the origin of the Bourse) was from early morning 
to the close of day the scene of the wildest excitement. There 
and in the Rue Vivienne, where I^aw's magnificent new 
premises were situated, noblemen and lackeys, grave doctors 
from the Sorbonne and women of fashion, jostled each other 
in the surging crowd, for the common mania had turned all 
heads. Those w^ho were poor made haste to be rich ; those 
who were rich — like the Duke of Bourbon and the Prince of 
Conti — were no less eager to add to their already great posses- 
sions. Men of property disposed of their lands and houses 
in order to place the proceeds in the hands of the mighty 
conjurer who would multiply them a thousandfold ; at the 
other end of the scale valets, cooks, and ladies' maids launched 
their wages and savings on the same adventurous career. At 
first, as was natural, the fever affected Paris only ; but it 
quickly spread to the provinces, and ere long crowds of adven- 
428 



LOUIS XV 

turers poured into the capital from all parts of the country, 
and even from other lands, all bent on the same errand, the 
very seats on the coaches which ran into Paris being sold at 
a premium and engaged long in advance. During 1719, it is 
computed, the population of the metropolis was swollen by 
the influx of a quarter of a million strangers, while house 
property in the neighbourhood of the Rue Quincampoix rose 
to twenty times its normal value, and even attics in the 
same district commanded extraordinary rents. When colossal 
fortunes could be made by boot-blacks and waiters, and a 
man in luck might in a few days become a millionaire, and 
any one of the commonest intelligence might turn the changes 
of the market to his own account to the tune of 40,000 livres,^ 
it is not in the least surprising that the originator of the 
' System ' should be universally regarded as the benefactor 
of the people and the saviour of the State. Nor is it in the 
least surprising that all this sudden inrush of apparent wealth 
should have led to an immense inflation of prices, and on the 
part of those who had been miraculously enriched to almost 
incredible extravagance and prodigality. These results might 
have been anticipated. What does surprise us is the fact 
that not in France alone, but in other countries also, this 
factitious opulence, which had practically nothing behind it 
and was the creation only of artificial values, should have been 
mistaken for real prosperity and judged accordingly. Kven 
in England it was very generally believed that I^aw's new 
regime would prove the ruin of English commerce and colonial 
power. 

Collapse of the ' System ' 

Events soon showed, however, that in this matter there 
was not the slightest ground for alarm. The great Mississippi 
Bubble was pricked even more rapidly than it had been blown. 
In January 1720, on abjuring his Protestantism, hitherto his 
one obstacle to office, I^aw became Controller-General of 

* This is the sum reported to have been made one day by a clerk on the 
advance in the market price of shares while he was at dinner. 

429 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Finances. At this point he reached the zenith of his personal 
fortunes and for the moment seemed to wield an almost 
despotic power. But already he had begun to realize, if 
others had not, the absolutely unsound condition of his under- 
takings. He had not himself foreseen the universal specula- 
tion in shares which had turned the ' System ' into a gigantic 
gamble, the inevitable consequence of which; as he now per- 
ceived, would be the total destruction of public confidence 
in it. Kven while the madness had been at its height there 
had been frequent and violent, though temporary, drops in 
the value of the Company's shares. Presently a general down- 
ward tendency became apparent, and by the spring of 1720 
this was marked enough tp cause widespread consternation. 
I^aw struggled hard to check the rot which now set in. He 
issjaed a series of extraordinary edicts forbidding the use of 
coin, except in small payments, and its accumulation in the 
hands of private persons ; requiring such private persons to 
deposit all their precious metals with the Bank ; prohibiting 
under heavy penalties the use of diamonds and gold and silver 
plate. The purpose of these edicts, and of others of similar 
import and no less tyrannical, was to bolster up the tottering 
credit of the ' System ' and to enforce the circulation of the 
Government notes ; but very naturally they failed of their 
effect. In May 1720 lyaw found himself, therefore, driven to 
an even more drastic measure — the arbitrary lowering of the 
value both of the Bank bills and of the shares. This, however, 
was taken as^ a declaration of approaching bankruptcy, and 
though it was almost immediately revoked, the evil impression 
it produced could not now be obliterated. To sustain the 
falling market after this blunder was impossible. The crowds 
which a few months before had rushed to the Rue Vivienne 
and the Rue Quincampoix in the hope of obtaining at any 
price some of the Company's securities were now as eager to 
get rid of those which they held. Then the Bank refused to 
cash its notes, though, for the purpose of relieving distress, 
an effort was made to redeem those of small value — ten livres 
or under— which were chiefly in the hands of the poorer classes. 
430 



LOUIS XV 

The panic which ensued was accompanied by great disorder, 
many scenes of violence and several dastardly crimes, and I^aw, 
who was now execrated as extravagantly as he had recently 
been idolized, himself went in danger of his life. The climax 
was reached on July 17, when 15,000 persons gathered by 
three in the morning about the premises of the Bank, and 
sixteen men and women were suffocated or crushed to death 
before the day was out. Utterly discredited, the * System ' soon 
collapsed completely, and the Bank, which, properly managed, 
would have been of immense advantage to the country, failed 
with the general visionary schemes of which it had tmfortu- 
nately been made a part.^ Surrounded by enemies and 
deserted by all his friends with the soHtary exception of the 
Regent, I^aw escaped from the fury of the poptdace by flight 
to Brussels. But though he thus eluded their violence he 
was pursued by their malice. The story soon got wind that 
he had been clever enough to enrich himself at the expense 
of his dupes, and that he had contrived to smuggle a vast 
quantity of btdhon out of the country he had pillaged. This, 
however, was pure fabrication. I^aw's conduct must be con- 
demned in many respects, but simple justice demands that 
we should record the fact that he left France a ruined man. 
After brief sojourns in Belgium, Denmark, and England he 
made his way to Italy, and died, poor and forgotten, in Venice, 
in 1729. 

The failure of the ' System ' inevitably brought a great deal 
of confusion and distress in its train, and matters were made 
worse by the harsh and unjust methods adopted by the Govern- 
ment in its liquidation. I^ittle of permanent importance was 
accomplished by it for the financial credit of the State. On 
the other hand, the institution of the Bank undoubtedly gave 
a considerable impulse to agriculture, commerce, and industry, 

1 A terrible pestilence which in this year, 1720, ravaged Marseille and 
large portions of Provence, and which claimed some 80,000 victims, was 
interpreted by many persons of a pious turn of mind as a divine punishment 
sent upon France for its sins in connexion with the Mississippi Bubble. I^ike 
most ' providential dispensations,' however, it was visited upon the wrong 
people. 

431 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and helped in this way to restore the prosperity of the country. 
More indirectly, the effect of the * System * was also seen on the 
social side. The extravagant habits and the rage for luxury 
which had been fostered by it survived its ruin with mischiev- 
ous results in the private life of the people. At the same 
time some traditional prejudices received a rude shock. The 
fortunes made, if not always kept, by people of the most 
obscure origin, and the miraculous change which money 
produced in their status, were bound to disturb popular ideas 
regarding the relations of the classes and the sanctity of rank ; 
a great object-lesson, which was not likely to be soon forgotten, 
was thus given in the value of wealth and its influence ; while, 
concurrently, the nobles themselves lost something of their 
prestige by reason of the prominent and not very heroic part 
which many of them had taken in the rush for riches. Though 
doubtless we must be on our guard against the temptation 
to exaggerate the importance of these things, we may fairly 
include such far-reaching consequences of lyaw's work among 
the many forces which already in the early eighteenth century 
were beginning to undermine the manners and sentiments of 
the Old Regime. 

Foreign Policy of the Regency : Dubois 

While the commercial and economic destinies of France 
were thus under the control of I^aw, its foreign policy was 
being directed by the second of the Regent's chief advisers, 
the Abbe Dubois. I^ike I^aw, Guillaume Dubois was of humble 
extraction, for he was the son of an apothecary-physician of 
Brive-la-Gaillarde, in the province of I^imousin, where he was 
born in 1656. Entering the Church, he became at twenty- 
seven one of the tutors, and at thirty-one the preceptor, of the 
Duke of Orleans (then Duke of Chartres), over whose mind 
he soon obtained a strong and, as it proved, a lasting influence. 
When his former pupil became Regent Dubois was a man of 
sixty, but it was at this point that his real career began. 
Though he was too obscure for a seat on any of the councils, 
the Regent's favour opened a way for him, and it was not 



LOUIS XV 

long before the impotence of the councils gave him an oppor- 
tunity of demonstrating his worth. Kven before their sup- 
pression he was practically at the head of foreign affairs. On 
the restoration of government by secretaries he was appointed 
to the charge of that department. In due course he became 
Archbishop of Cambrai, then cardinal, and ultimately Prime 
Minister — the first since Mazarin. 

The lurid portrait of Dubois painted by Saint-Simon, who 
holds him up to obloquy as the very '' scum of the people " 
and a perfect monster of depravity, though long accepted by 
historians, is now known to be a mere caricature. But while 
he was free from the particular vices which the bitter annalist 
ascribed to him, he had faults enough of a different kind, for 
he was ambitious, avaricious, greedy of place and power, and 
utterly unscrupulous in the pursuit of his ends. 

While not a great statesman, Dubois was a clever politician, 
and the situation which the French Government had to face 
at the opening of the Regency was one which demanded all 
his dexterity and tact. The Treaty of Utrecht had left the 
relations of the Great Powers in a state of dangerous instability. 
Between France and Spain in particular the tension was 
already extreme. Philip V, not without cause, suspected the 
Regent of having cherished designs upon his throne, while 
on his own side he was known to be dissatisfied with the 
settlement which had deprived him and his heirs of all title 
to the crown of France. In these circumstances peace between 
the two countries could scarcely be maintained. I^eft to him- 
self, indeed, Philip, too feeble-minded for independent action, 
would probably have allowed himself to dream and drift. 
Buc he was egged on by his domineering second wife, Elizabeth 
Farnese, and by his Prime Minister, the ambitious but giddy 
and incompetent Cardinal Alberoni. These two Italians were 
determined to recover for Spain the possessions in Italy which 
had been ceded to Austria under the Treaty of Utrecht. To 
this end Alberoni began to intrigue among the Powers, even 
attempting by promises of important commercial concessions 
to purchase the help of England and Holland in his proposed 

2E 433 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

aggressive policy against the Emperor and the Regent. But 
this design was frustrated by the skill and energy of Dubois, 
who by personal interviews with I^ord Stanhope, the English 
minister, at The Hague, and with George I at Hanover, con- 
trived to bring about an understanding between France and 
England which, with the subsequent accession of Holland, 
became a new Triple Alliance (January 1717). The object of 
this compact was to uphold the Treaty of Utrecht, especially 
in respect of the question of succession to both the French 
and English thrones. But while in return for George I's 
support against Philip in France the Regent engaged to drive 
the Stuart Pretender from French soil, where he had taken 
refuge after the failure of the rising of 1715, he also undertook 
to demolish the fortifications which I^ouis XIV had begun at 
Mardyk to take the place of those of Dunkerque. Though this 
undertaking was in fact in complete accord with the spirit of 
the Treaty of Utrecht, it was the principal ground for the 
violent attacks which were made upon Dubois and the Regent, 
who were accused of having bought the protection of England 
with the humiliation of their own country. It has even been 
stated on the authority of Saint-Simon and d'Argenson that 
Dubois was a secret pensioner of England and had been bribed 
by English gold — an allegation which, however, may be dis- 
missed. The terms of the Triple Alliance show, indeed, how 
far France had fallen from her former high estate in the councils 
of Europe, and its unpopularity at the moment is therefore 
quite intelligible. But such terms were the best that could 
be obtained in the circumstances and were justified by results. 
Those who condemn Dubois' policy forget that it saved France 
from a repetition of the cruel and useless wars from which she 
was only beginning to recover. 

War v^ith Spain 

Notwithstanding, however, the new complexion which the 
Triple Alliance put on European affairs, Alberoni was still 
resolved to drive the Austrians out of Italy. A few months 
only after the coalition had been formed a Spanish fleet 

434 



LOUIS XV 

descended upon the island of Sardinia and hostilities broke 
out between Spain and Austria. In the hope of preserving 
the tranquillity of Europe, George I and the Regent attempted 
to mediate^ between the belligerents, but without success. Then 
in July 1718 Austria joined France, England, and Holland, and 
the Triple became the Quadruple Alliance. A general war was 
precipitated by the action of Spain in seizing Sicily in open 
violation of the Treaty of Utrecht. On August 11, 1718, the 
English fleet under Admiral Byng annihilated the Spanish 
armada off Cape Passaro. In March of the following year 
a French army under the Duke of Berwick (a bastard son of 
James II) swept across the frontier and overran Spain, meeting 
little resistance on its victorious march. Alberoni meanwhile 
made desperate efforts to check his enemies' successes by 
stirring up insurrection in Brittany and despatching a small 
expedition to Scotland in behalf of the Pretender. When 
nothing came of these designs he sought by the most fantastic 
proposals to detach Orleans from the alliance. But by this 
time Philip and his queen had become fully convinced of the 
folly of the adventure on which they had embarked, and the 
war soon came to a close. In December 1719 Alberoni was 
dismissed and banished. In February 1720 Philip proclaimed 
his acceptance of the provisions of the Quadruple Alliance. 
Then the reconciliation of France and Spain was sealed by 
engagements of marriage between the little Infanta (then a 
child of three) and I^ouis XV, and between Philip's eldest son 
and the Regent's daughter. 

The Conspiracy of Cellamare 

One episode of this brief Franco-Spanish war has a certain 
interest on account of its domestic bearings. By the action 
of the Parliament of Paris in yielding to the demands of the 
Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Maine, as we have seen, had been 
deprived of all the privileges granted to him by his father's 
will. Two years later both he and his younger brother the 
Count of Toulouse (also a son of Mme de Montespan) were 
further removed from the line of succession and from the 

435 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

precedence which they had enjoyed over all the nobles save 
the princes of the blood. ^ As unambitious as he was cowardly 
and incompetent, Maine, however much he might grumble, 
seemed willing to submit to these insults without active pro- 
test. Not so his wife, Anne-Benedicte de Bourbon, a grand- 
daughter of the Great Conde, and a woman of energetic nature 
and resolute will. Though the society which she gathered 
about her in her magnificent chateau at Sceaux was chiefly 
devoted to amusement, literature, and the lighter arts, she 
continued to nurse her hatred of the Regent, and as soon as 
the opportunity arose her little court became a centre of anti- 
Orleanist agitation. Under the direction of Alberoni, the dis- 
content of her circle was utilized by the Spanish ambassador, 
Cellamare, in the hope that- a conspiracy might be fomented 
potent enough to embarrass the Government, and perhaps 
eve^n to accomplish the overthrow of the Regent and Dubois 
(1718). The plot, however, turned out to be a sorry farce. 
Though the principal conspirators were sent to prison, the 
Government showed its absolute contempt for them and their 
machinations by ordering their release after only a few months. 
A more serious view was naturally taken of Cellamare's abuse 
of his privileged position, and he was promptly sent out of the 
country.^ 

The Close of the Regency 

The conclusion of the war with Spain was the last important 
event of the Regency. In October 1722 lyouis XV was crowned 
at Reims ; on February 16, 1723, he attained his legal majority 
and nominally assumed the prerogatives and duties of kingship. 
This change, however, made little difference to the government 
of the country, for Dubois, now Prime Minister, remained in 
actual power till his death in the following August. The 

1 By an edict of 171 4 Ivouis XIV had declared his legitimized sons competent 
to succeed to the throne in the event of the failure of legitimate heirs. 

« It must be remembered that though hostilities had already begun between 
England and Spain, war between France and Spain was not declared till early 
in 1719. This explains the presence of the Spanish ambassador in France at 
the time of the conspiracy. 



LOUIS XV 

Duke of Orleans then became Prime Minister in his turn. 
But his tenure of office was very brief. His health had recently 
been failing fast under the incessant strain of his profligate 
life, and he had again and again been warned that only a 
radical change in his habits could save him from utter collapse. 
He refused to listen to advice, and, persisting in his excesses, 
died suddenly of the long-expected stroke of apoplexy on 
December 2, 1723. He was only forty-nine. 

So ended a period which, brief as it was, holds a place of 
considerable importance in French history. On a casual view 
it might indeed seem that the Regency, though it attempted 
much, actually accomplished nothing. Its efforts to revolu- 
tionize the administration of the country were abortive. Its 
experiments with the finances, though under different condi- 
tions they might have been successful, were ruined by the 
extravagances of the * System.' Yet both politically and 
financially the old ideas had been badly shaken by even such 
a temporary break in firmly established tradition. Subsequent 
events were to provide the proof of this by showing that 
though the ancient forms remained the spirit which animated 
them was already undergoing a change. Absolute monarchy 
was to exist in France for more than sixty years longer ; but 
the half-century of lyouis XV's inglorious reign is the prelude 
to its decay. 



+37 



CHAPTER IX 

LOUIS XV 

II. THE MONARCHY 

1723-1774 

THE Duke of Orleans' successor in the Premiershi]) was 
his cousin the Duke of Bourbon, a haught^^ selfish 
man, who had no qualifications for the position and 
was, moreover, entirely under the thumb of his mistress, the 
anilpitious and corrupt Mme de Prie. The principal event of 
his brief administration was the marriage of the King. In 
the event of I^ouis* death without issue the crown would have 
passe'd into the Orleans family, and this contingency the new 
Prime Minister, who hated the Orleans family with the bitterest 
hatred, was determined at all costs to avert. It will be re- 
membered that lyouis was already affianced to the Infanta of 
Spain, who was then in fact being educated in Paris for her 
future role. But as she was only a child of six some j-ears 
would have to elapse before the marriage could take place, 
and Bourbon was too impatient to brook such delay. He 
therefore decided, even at the risk of provoking Spain, to 
break oif the engagement and seek another bride. Accordingly 
the little Infanta was sent home (October 1724) and the royal 
marriage market scrutinized for a substitute. Many names 
were discussed. Finally the choice fell upon Marie IyevSzc3niska, 
the daughter of Stanislaus, the exiled King of Poland, who 
was then living in obscurity at Weissenburg, in Alsace. The 
selection seemed a curious one, for the match had no diplomatic 
advantages. But the Duke and Mme de Prie had a good 
personal reason for arranging it. As the future Queen would 
owe her elevation entirely to them, they counted that her 

438 



LOUIS XV 

gratitude would make her their willing tool. The marriage 
was solemnized by procuration in the cathedral of Strassburg 
on August 15, 1725. Marie, who was seven years older than 
her husband, was neither beautiful nor brilliant, but she was 
a pious woman, though a good deal of a precisian. Had lyouis 
been susceptible to good, she might have exercised a wholesome 
influence over his mind. As it was, the relations between 
the two were never cordial, and Marie was soon little more 
than a cipher at her own Court. 

Apart from this marriage and some ill-advised tamperings 
with the finances and the laws against begging and theft, 
Bourbon distinguished himself chiefly by his religious intoler- 
ance. Reactionaries had found the Regent deaf to their 
clamours for harsher measures against the Protestants, who 
after L/Ouis XIV's death had shown signs of reviving activity. 
With Bourbon they easily had their way. The declaration 
of May 1724 not only renewed the edicts of the late King, but 
even destroyed the right of private worship which the heretics 
had still enjoyed. Fresh persecutions followed and emigration 
recommenced. 

The Ministry of Cardinal Fleury 

Strong, however, as Bourbon's position appeared, he did 
not long keep the confidence of the King. Both he and Mme 
de Prie were hated at Court and throughout the country, and 
it was a relief to all outside their own narrow circle when in 
June 1726 they were dismissed. His place as chief minister 
in fact though not in name (for the title he refused to accept) 
was at once taken by Cardinal Fleury, whose administration, 
though he was already nearly seventy-three at the time, was 
to last for seventeen years. The son of a tax-receiver of 
Ivodeve, in I^anguedoc, Andre-Hercule de Fleury had in the 
last year of lyouis XIV's reign been appointed preceptor to the 
little Dauphin, who soon came to exhibit for him as near an 
approach to affection as he was capable of feeling for any 
living creature. Had he chosen to assert himself Fleury might 
undoubtedly have claimed the Premiership on Orleans' death. 

439 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Whether from timidity or from lack of ambition, he stood 
aside and allowed Bourbon to step into the vacant place. 
At the same time he retained his personal influence over the 
King, and it was largely through him that Bourbon's disgrace 
was brought about. 

The change of ministry was a great advantage to the country, 
for, though by no means brilliant, Fleury was -an upright and 
public-spirited man. His natural diffidence was manifest 
throughout his conduct of affairs, but if he made no note- 
worthy experiments in reform he practised thrift, honesty, 
and businesslike methods, while by his pacific counsels he 
succeeded in allaying the irritation of Spain over the broken 
marriage contract. As a result of his policy a marked improve- 
ment in the national condition soon became apparent. In 
only one way was the domestic calm disturbed, and that was 
through a renewal of religious strife. The immediate cause 
of this was the condemnation of the venerable Bishop of Senez 
for a' pastoral supposed to be tainted with Jansenist heresy 
(1727). There was a strong current of popular feeling in favour 
of the Jansenist party, not because the people at large cared 
one jot about its theology, but because of the implacable 
hostility of the Jesuits toward it. It was natural, therefore, 
that the Parliament of Paris should support the Bishop against 
the Sorbonne. This brought the Parliament into conflict with 
the Crown over the bull Unigenitus (1730). Meanwhile the 
capital was thrown into a state of intense excitement by an 
extraordinary outburst of religious mania. A certain Deacon 
Paris, a prominent Jansenist whose life had been spent in the 
most extreme asceticism, died in 1727, and soon after his 
death rumours began to get afloat concerning miracles which 
were alleged to be occurring at his grave in the cemetery of 
Saint-Medard. Such stories grew apace despite the efforts of 
the ecclesiastical authorities to discredit them, and before 
long great crowds were flocking daily to the scene. Among 
these crowds were many fanatics who were seized with a kind 
of contagious hysteria, and whose violent contortions, disgust- 
ing gesticulations, and wild prayers and prophesyings earned 
440 





:: ■ 'A.-'. - ^^ .; 


'■"■■ ^''" ' 


■- ■ _ ^ ■ ^m ■ 




H^ 






^^^^^^^^B J^mI^vJL^'^ ^r^ iVI^B^^^^Ib 'l^^^^K^Hn^nRjE^F 


^Ip K ^9 


^^^:9 ^ '<, ' 


11^^ ■ ■• ■ ^-'■J^,W.:% 


#-:, 


'» '■ ' 7 '■ 'f^''- r ' % 


X, :*»■ ' ' 


\ ^MjHlK'il : fc. • 




1 


JCT 


-:;. -v. .^-.... '''':■■■'}£, i,.::: J 


J ^'« '' 


■ '■ ; ■ ,^ ^^:^^^ . ■" 


^■wfcK|;|, -ylr 






, "^^id^B^^'*'-^^' - > ■ , 


'V:'%$ " -' ■' 


;; ■ \ ;;W.:i|iP::-vi ■: 





69. lyOUIS XV 



440 



LOUIS XV 

for them the name of convulsionnaires. At length the situation 
became so serious that the Government had to interfere, and 
in January 1732 the cemetery was closed. The biting epigram 
which announced that the King had forbidden God to perform 
any further miracles ^ may be taken as an index of intelligent 
opinion on the subject. Jansenism had been fast degenerat- 
ing since the great days of Arnauld and Pascal, and this out- 
burst of fanaticism brought it into general disrepute. Voltaire 
declared that the grave of Deacon Paris was that of Jansenism 
as well. 

The War of the Polish Succession 

Soon after this France was once more involved in war. In 
September 1733 the throne of Poland was left vacant by the 
death of Augustus II. The Polish monarchy was elective, 
and two candidates presented themselves : Stanislaus, the 
exiled sovereign, and the late King's son, Augustus, Elector 
of Saxony. Stanislaus was elected ; but Russia and Prussia 
refused to recognize him and proclaimed the Elector of Saxony 
in his stead. Anxious as Fleury was to preserve peace, he 
was overborne by the bellicose party at Court who held that 
France was bound to support their own King's father-in-law. 
The War of the Polish Succession which resulted lasted from 
1733 to 1738. So far as Poland itself was concerned the issue 
was quickly settled. The Russians seized Warsaw and marched 
upon Dantzig ; the miserable expeditionary force sent out 
by Fleury failed completely to arrest their progress ; Stanislaus 
fled in haste back to France, and his cause collapsed. But 
these disasters were offset by substantial gains in the war 
against Austria, in which France had Savoy and Spain as 
allies. Two armies were despatched : the one under Berwick 
to the Rhine, the other under Villars, the last of the great 
generation of I^ouis XIV's captains, into Italy. Berwick 
seized Kehl and laid siege to Philipsburg, where, however, he 
was killed. Villars died at Turin, at eighty-one, regretting 



De par le roi, defense a Dieu 
De faire miracle en ce lieu." 



441 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

that, unlike Berwick, who had always been more lucky than 
himself, he had not fallen in battle. But the French were 
victorious at Parma and Guastalla, while the Spaniards occupied 
Naples and Sicily. These successes gave the pacific Fleury 
the eagerly awaited opportunity to open negotiations for peace, 
and the war died down, though it was not till 1738 that it was 
formally closed by the Treaty of Vienna. Details of the dis- 
tribution of the territorial spoils among the allies need not 
detain us. It is enough to record that Stanislaus, in compensa- 
tion for the loss of Poland, was granted the duchy of lyorraine, 
with the proviso that on his death it should be united in 
perpetuity to France,^ while Francis, the Duke of I^orraine, 
who was dispossessed to make place for him, received Tuscany 
in exchange. 

The War of the Austrian Succession 

Fleury was satisfied with a peace which for France was not 
without honour, but within a couple of years of its conclusion 
fresh clouds began to gather upon the European horizon. In 
October 1740 the Kmperor Charles VI, Archduke of Austria, 
died, leaving no male issue, but a daughter, Maria Theresa, 
then in her twenty-fourth year. Though it was, of course, out 
of the question that she should aspire to the Imperial crown, 
her father had done his utmost to secure for her the inheritance 
of his Austrian dominions, and in this he was confident that 
he had succeeded, the Pragmatic Sanction in which in 1713 
he had proclaimed her right having been formally accepted 
by all the principal rulers save the Elector of Bavaria, who 
was himself a rival claimant. No sooner was he in his grave, 
however, than the consenting parties found the required loop- 
hole in their agreement and began a diplomatic scramble for 
the possessions of the young Archduchess — a course which they 
felt safe in adopting since they had to deal with a woman 
whose husband (Francis, formerly of I^orraine and now of 
Tuscany) was a negligible prince, and whose country was in a 
state of military and financial decay. At this point, however, 

* This occurred in 1766. 

442 



LOUIS XV 

a fresh turn was given to affairs by the sudden appearance 
of the new King of Prussia, Frederick II, who, with the decision 
of purpose and cynical disregard of moraHty which together 
were to characterize his actions throughout his career, trumped 
up a claim to a portion of Silesia, invaded the province, and 
defeated the Austrians at Mollwitz (1741) and Chotusitz (1742). 
This piece of shameless aggression roused the war passion 
throughout Europe. Poor old Fleury exerted all his efforts 
to keep France out of the coming struggle, but he was now too 
senile to withstand the powerful influence of the hot-headed 
and ambitious Belle-Isle and the anti- Austrian party. Against 
his own judgment, therefore, he made common cause with 
Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, Spain, Sardinia, and Poland in 
repudiating the Pragmatic Sanction. The Wa.r of the Austrian 
Succession opened favourably for the allies, and Maria Theresa, 
basely abandoned by those who should have been her friends, 
had to seek refuge in Hungary, where her eloquent appeal to 
their sympathies aroused the entire people in her support. 
Then by the timely cession of Silesia she detached Frederick 
from the coalition ; Saxony and Sardinia followed ; while 
Spain became entangled in a maritime war with England, 
which, like Holland, now abandoned its neutrality and openly 
declared for the Archduchess. The result of these shifting 
conditions was the practical isolation of France, and Belle- 
Isle's army in Bohemia was at once placed in serious peril, 
out of which, however, the Marshal contrived to extricate 
himself by a forced march in which he sacrificed 1200 men 
but lost neither cannon nor flag. At this juncture Cardinal 
Fleury died, in his ninetieth year (January 1743), and Louis 
announced his intention to imitate his great-grandfather by 
governing henceforth without a Prime Minister. The gravity 
of the situation rousing him for a moment from his customary 
lethargy, he took command of his army after the defeat of the 
French by the English at Dettingen (1743), but at Metz was 
struck down by an illness which almost proved fatal, and 
again retired from the scene. Disturbed by the successes of 
Austria, Frederick now turned against Maria Theresa and 

443 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

invaded Bohemia, but the prospects of European peace were 
none the less vastly improved by the election of Maria's husband 
as Emperor. Erance was furious at the course which things 
had taken^ yet though no possible gain could now accrue to 
her from the continuance of the war, she was compelled to 
fight on in the hope of obtaining honourable terms of peace. 
Victory crowned her efforts in Flanders at Eontenoy (1745), 
Raucoux (1746), and I^awfeld (1747), but elsewhere the balance 
of results was against her on both land and sea. It was there- 
fore a relief to Frenchmen of all classes and opinions when the 
preliminaries of peace were at length signed at Aix-la-Chapelle 
in 1748. This unjust and bloody war had on the whole been 
creditable to the national arms, though much of its glory 
redounded to the foreign commander, Maurice de Saxe.^ But 
its chief results to France were the elevation of Prussia to a 
place among the foremost Powers and the addition of twelve 
hundred million livres to the public debt. 

The period immediately following the Treaty of Aix was, 
however, one of extraordinary prosperity throughout Europe,^ 
and even France, with her astonishing vitality, began to 
recover rapidly from the strain. Yet, as Frederick declared, 
the peace was only a truce, which gave the combatants time 
to take breath and prepare to renew the conflict under more 
favourable conditions. Seven years passed, and then a general 
struggle was once more precipitated by a collision between 
France and England. Owing to the colonial rivalries of these 
two countries, the recent war had spread to India and North 
America, and in neither of these distant theatres had hostilities 
ever completely ceased. Despite the unwise methods too often 
adopted by her statesmen, the power of France beyond the 
sea had long been growing fast, and her various colonial pos- 
sessions — ^in the He Bourbon, the Ile-de-France, the Antilles, 
Canada, I^ouisiana, and India (though here the enterprise of 
Dupleix had been frustrated by Give and ruined by Dupleix' 
recall and disgrace in 1754) — gave encouraging signs for still 

1 Illegitimate son of Augustus II of Poland. 
'jVoltaire, Le Steele de Louis XV. 

444 



LOUIS XV 

further success. Such signs, accompanied as they were by the 
efforts of the French to revive their long-neglected marine, 
aroused the jealousy of England. The consequent tension was 
particularly marked in North America, where disputes regard- 
ing boundaries, notably in Acadia and along the western 
frontiers of the thirteen colonies, were of continual occur- 
rence. One of these came to a head in 1754, when a series of 
encounters (in which, it is interesting to note, young George 
Washington played a conspicuous part) took place in the Ohio 
valley. Angry representations were exchanged between the two 
Governments, but it was not till 1756 that peace was formally 
broken. 

The Seven Years' War 

Distant as was their field, the hostilities which now com- 
menced in earnest disturbed the equilibrium of Europe. Maria 
Theresa, though she had accepted the settlement of Aix, had 
done so only under compulsion, and had continued to nurse 
her grievances and her desire for revenge. Frederick, aware 
of her designs, had meanwhile kept his army ready for instant 
action. Both France and Britain were also preparing to enter 
the pending conflict, the latter on the side of Prussia, the 
former, together with Russia, Sweden, and most of the German 
states, as an ally of Austria, her hereditary foe. Such was 
the disposition of the antagonists when in 1756 began the 
desperate Seven Years' War, which has a twofold significance 
in history because it was the closing struggle at once between 
Austria and Prussia for the possession of Silesia and between 
France and England for colonial supremacy and the com- 
mand of the sea. Having obtained b}'' bribery information 
of the combination which was being formed against him, 
Frederick with his characteristic promptitude again anti- 
cipated his enemies and in August 1756 invaded Saxony, 
where he carried everything before him. Two French 
armies at once took the field, one of which overwhelmed 
Cumberland, * the Butcher,' at Hastenbeck and Klosterzeven 
(1757), while the other was routed by Frederick at Rossbach 

445 



HISTORY OP FRANCE 

(1757). Thenceforth the continental war was fought out on 
two separate Hues. Frederick, engaging the Austrians and 
Russians in the region of the Elbe and the Oder, exhibited 
tireless energy and consummate military genius ; yet his 
campaigns of 1758-60 were on the whole unfortunate, and in 
the winter of 1761-62 he was brought so near to the end of 
his resources that his position seemed almost desperate. But 
the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth in 1762 removed Russia 
from the Hst of his enemies, and from this point on the tide 
ran entirely in his favour. In the meantime in the valley of 
the Rhine the French, operating against the Anglo™Hanove- 
rians, were now victors and now vanquished, now able to 
push forward into Germany and now forced to retreat. All 
through they displayed their usual dash and valour, but their 
apnies were in poor condition, ill-equipped and ill-disciplined ; 
their officers were in general careless and incompetent ; while 
their chief command had suffered seriously by the substitution 
through a boudoir intrigue of the Prince of Soubise and the 
Duke of Richelieu for that really fine old soldier. Marshal 
d'Estrees. 

For France, however, the colonial war was of infinitely 
greater moment than the continental. In this wider field the 
struggle opened auspiciously, for a French fleet defeated the 
English under Byng in the Mediterranean (1756) ; Minorca 
was captured ; while Montcalm in Canada broke the English 
invasion and repulsed Abercrombie at Ticonderoga. But in 
1757 the course of events underwent a decisive change. 
Despite George II 's dislike of him, Pitt was now firmly estab- 
lished in power, and carried the war forward with the utmost 
vigour and sagacity, while on the other hand the government 
of France, now practically in the hands of the King's mistress 
and her creatures, was steadily going from bad to worse. An 
attempt to gain strength by the union of the two chief branches 
of the Bourbons in the Family Compact with Spain (1761) 
failed entirely to stem the tide of British successes ; indeed, 
the main result of this secret agreement was to involve Spain 
in the growing reverses of France. In Canada, after a brief 



LOUIS XV 

but heroic resistance on the part of the habitants, Wolfe's 
victory on the Plains of Abraham (1759), the fall of Quebec, 
and the capture of Montreal (1760) virtually closed the his- 
tory of French dominion in North America. In India I^ally- 
Tollendal, deserted by the fleet, was forced back into Pondi- 
cherry and compelled to surrender after a splendid defence of 
nearly a year, and the doom of French power in Asia was also 
sealed. 

The Seven Years' War, having exhausted all the combatants, 
was closed in 1763 by the Treaty of Hubertsburg between 
Prussia and Austria and that of Paris between France and 
Britain. On the continental side the gigantic struggle had 
accomplished nothing ; for it made no alteration in the map 
of Europe and '' not a hamlet . . . changed its ruler " as a 
result of all its waste and carnage.^ In its colonial aspects, 
on the other hand, its consequences were vast and far-reaching. 
In plain terms, its chief issue for France was the practical 
destruction of her power beyond the seas. She was, indeed, 
permitted to retain a few possessions of little value in the 
West Indies, and those in India as they had existed before 
1749, but her colonial development was arrested and her 
commerce crippled. Moreover, she was compelled to cede 
lyouisiana to Spain as an indemnity for Spain's losses under 
the Family Compact, and, as a last drop of bitterness in the 
cup of her humiliation, to guarantee the demolition of the 
fortifications of Dunkerque. It is perhaps no exaggeration to 
say that the Treaty of Paris was the most cruel blow that 
French pride had received in modern times. It is certain that 
with its signature France sank lower in the eyes of the world 
than at any moment since the Wars of Religion. Nor was 
this all. National disaster and disgrace deeply affected the 
imagination of the sensitive French people themselves and 
intensified their growing bitterness against their Government. 
The Seven Years' War has therefore to be included among 
the many causes which were now co-operating to bring about the 
debasement of the monarchy in the judgment of the nation. 

^ J. B. Perkins, France under Louis XV, vol. ii, p. 177. 

447 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The Character of Louis XV 

Even more potent among such causes, however, we have 
to reckon the character and conduct of the monarch himself 
and of those into whose hands he allowed the control of the 
State to lapse. I^ouis XV seems to have been born with a 
thoroughly vicious disposition. It is hardly too much to say 
that he was a moral pervert. As a child he showed himself 
singularly callous and cruel, his principal pleasure being the 
killing of little birds, while all through life he indulged his 
lust for blood in forms of sport which were little better than 
organized slaughter. Utterly selfish and indolent, he evinced, 
save on a few rare occasions, no interest in either domestic 
or foreign affairs. The ruin of his country and the miseries 
of his people left him unmoved ; " Cela durera bien autant 
que moi," he is reported to have said ; and again, '* Apres 
moi le deluge " ; and if these were not the actual phrases 
used by him they will serve to express his feeling. His 
temperament was, indeed, so sluggish that even the external 
trappings of kingship gave him no pleasure. The splendours 
of the Court in which lyouis XIV had found satisfaction were 
to him a weariness. From youth to age he suffered from 
terrible listlessness and boredom, out of which his main escape 
was into debaucheries which have made his name infamous 
even in the annals of kings. Yet many as were his amours 
he never exhibited the slightest trace of genuine passion in 
any of them. His sensuality had nothing poetic about it ; 
it was merely one aspect of a hopelessly brutal and depraved 
nature. 

The Marquise of Pompadour 

Of all the women who figure in the record of his reign one 
deserves some attention because she belongs to the history 
of France as well as to that of the Court. Jeanne-Antoinette 
Poisson, afterward the Marquise of Pompadour, was married 
at twenty to a certain I^e Normant d'fitioles, and at twenty- 
four became the King's mistress and the ruling star at 

448 




00 



Pi 

P 
Q 

W 
P 




« 

P 

o 



<1 

o 

Ah 
D 

Q 



o 



LOUIS XV 

Versailles. She was a woman of great beauty and charm, 
and of rather unusual intellectual endowments; vivacious 
and witty; a devotee of art, a lover of pretty things, a good 
musician and an admirable actress. But in temper she was 
cold (" froide comme une macreuse ") ; her mind was corrupt ; 
and from first to last she made the favour of the King the 
means for the satisfaction of her greed and ambitions. Had 
she been content to be simply the arbiter of fashion and taste 
she would have done comparatively little harm. Unhappily 
she aspired to political power, quickly obtained control of 
public affairs, filled the most important ofiices with her 
favourites, made her creatures ministers, appointed and dis- 
missed generals, and even interfered with the conduct of 
campaigns. Thus she was for a while practically the Prime 
Minister of France, ruling in accordance with her whims and 
caprices, and this at a critical time when the destinies of 
Prussia were being shaped by Frederick and those of England 
by Pitt. That during the nineteen years of what she herself 
called her * reign ' she absorbed something like thirty-six 
million livres from the State Treasury is a further fact to be 
set down in her account. Nor did her grasp upon the govern- 
ment relax till the very day of her death in 1764, though long 
before that popular hatred of her had been unceasingly dis- 
charging itself in lampoons, satires, and ' poissardes,' for which 
many a wit was sent to the Bastille. For as her own health 
and charms failed she accepted her change of position from 
royal mistress to amie necessaire, and, resolved at whatever 
cost to maintain her hold upon the King, descended even to 
pander to his vices by acting the part of procuress to the 
harem which he had established in the notorious Parc-aux- 
Cerfs behind Versailles. Yet, disastrous as was her rule, the 
country she had plundered gained little when she made way 
for the even more disreputable Mme du Barry. This handsome, 
coarse, vulgar woman, whose tastes were entirely for money, 
dress, and jewels, whose rapacity was almost incredible, and 
who bled the Treasury of some twelve million livres while the 
State was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, contrived to 

2 F 449 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

tickle the jaded appetites of the worn-out debauchee of sixty, 
and remained supreme over him till his death. 

Decline qf the Monarchy 

In these circumstances what chance was there that the 
monarch would retain even a shred of the respect of his subjects, 
or that the divinity which had long hedged the French throne 
would survive so many and such rude assaults ? In his youth 
lyouis had been the object of much popular affection. On 
Fleury's death high hopes had been entertained of his personal 
rule. During his serious illness a little later the country was 
stirred to its depths with anxiety ; his recovery was hailed 
with transports of joy ; even the sovereign, surprised out of 
his apathy, was fain to ask — as well he might — ^what he had 
dqne to be so beloved. It was at this time, indeed, that the 
surname was bestowed upon him which was afterward to gain 
such a cynical significance — that of * Bien-aime.'^ But the 
mood of the nation changed rapidly after the Peace of Aix, 
when the Government became the plaything of scheming 
courtiers and dissolute women, and the King's unpopularity 
thenceforth grew apace until it had developed into the bitterest 
hatred. A sentimental reaction in his favour set in, it is true, 
when in January 1757 his life was attempted by a half -crazy 
valet named Damiens. But it was only momentary. As 
years went on and he sank lower and lower into the slough 
of debauchery, the abominations connected with his private 
life combined' with the reckless misrule of those who nominally 
governed in his behalf to intensify the loathing with which 
he was everywhere regarded. It was during these years 
that P'rance came clearly to realize that the figure she had 
worshipped as God's anointed was only a monstrous idol of 
clay. 

The Ministry of the Duke of Choiseul 

The one comparatively bright spot in the thirty years from 
Fleury's death to the end of the reign was the period of the 
ministry of the Duke of Choiseul, between 1758 and 1770. 
450 



LOUIS XV 

Choiseul owed his elevation to Mnie de Pompadour, but though 
for a time he depended upon backstairs influences he gradually 
made himself secure enough to act independently. He was 
not a great statesman nor a very scrupulous one ; but he was 
a man of ideas ; he had the national interest at heart ; and 
if he lacked stability he had plenty of courage. His chief 
ambition was to restore the prestige of the country in the 
councils of Europe, but the fact that two years after his retire- 
ment Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland among 
them without troubling to consult France is proof that his 
efforts met with only a measure of success. In order to seal 
the Austrian alliance he arranged a marriage between the 
Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette, Maria Theresa's daughter 
(1770). He introduced various useful reforms in the army, 
the navy, and the finances, developed trade and industry at 
home, and, convinced that all was not yet lost abroad, set 
himself to the task of reviving what was left of the French 
colonial empire and the mercantile marine. The purchase of 
Corsica from Genoa (1767-68) — an acquisition of great im- 
portance for naval purposes — was another step in his foreign 
policy. These measures, and still more the suppression of the 
order of the Jesuits, rendered him extremely popular. But 
he made enemies at Court, especially after Mme de Pompa- 
dour's death, and his temerity in opposing the all-powerful 
Mme du Barry led to his downfall. On December 24, 1770, 
he received his dismissal, and retired at once to his estate at 
Chanteloup. The demonstration which attended his departure 
showed that the popular sympathies were all on his side. 
Cheering crowds followed his carriage to the gates, and his 
portrait was sold in the streets. 

Closing Years of Louis' Reign 

After this the government of France passed into the hands 
of a triumvirate composed of the Duke of Aiguillon as Foreign 
Minister, the Abbe Terray as Controller-General of Finances, 
and the Chancellor Maupeou. The chief event of their 
combined rule, which lasted till the King's death, was the 

4SI 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

suppression of the Parliaments. Since the Regency the Parlia- 
ment of Paris had renewed its old practice of interfering in 
political affairs, and had thus more than once come into 
serious collision with the Court. Meanwhile, however, it 
enjoyed so much popularity by reason both of its resistance 
to arbitrary taxation and its uncompromising opposition to 
the Jesuits that on the last of these occasions, in December 
1756, it was only the diversion of feeling caused by Damiens' 
attempted murder of the King which prevented a rising of 
the people in its favour. On the other hand, like the pro- 
vincial Parliaments, it was hated by the philosophic party for 
its despotism and bigotry.^ Such was the situation when 
Maupeou, who had himself been its president, was installed 
as Chancellor, For several years a violent quarrel had been 
raging between the Parliament of Brittany and Aiguillon, then 
governor of the province, who was accused by it of extor- 
tion. In this quarrel the local magistrature had the support 
of Ihe Parliament of Paris. I,ouis took a strong line against 
the combination, asserting in language which echoed that 
often held by his great-grandfather his own sole and sovereign 
power ; but all the same Aiguillon was recalled and cited 
before the Parliament of Paris. It was while the trial was 
dragging on its weary course that Choiseul's dismissal occurred. 
Then, under the advice of Mme du Barry and the triumvirate, 
the King annulled the proceedings. The provincial Parlia- 
ments joined that of Paris in a vigorous protest against this 
arbitrary act, and the dispute thus became generalized into 
a conflict of principles. Upon this Maupeou determined to 
crush all resistance to the Crown by a coup d'etat. On the 
night of January 19-20, 1771, the magistrates of the Parlia- 

* It must be remembered that the Parliament of Paris condemned Rous- 
seau' t works to be burnt and Voltaire's publishers to severe punishment, 
behaved with brutal injustice in the case of Lally-ToUendal, and sent I^a Barre 
and d'i^allonde to the stake for alleged insults to the crucifix. The record 
of the provincial Parliaments was as bad. That of Toulouse rendered itself 
specially infamous by the persecution of the Protestants and the judicial 
murder' of the Huguenot Calas, in whose case Voltaire made such a splendid 
fight in the cause of humanity. 



LOUIS XV 

ment were visited by mousquetaires, who summarily demanded 
their subjection to the King. Those who refused — 113 in 
all— were exiled from Paris under leftres de cachet. This 
action was followed in April by the suppression of the Parlia- 
ments throughout the country, their place being taken by 
new judicial bodies popularly known as the ' Parlements 
Maupeou.* 

Save for this effort to preserve the empty show of absolutism 
amid the wreckage of its reality, the maladministration of the 
triumvirate is noteworthy only for the cynical dishonesty of 
Terray in dealing with the finances. Now that the check 
imposed by the Parliament of Paris was removed, the King 
and his mistress squandered the public money more recklessly 
than ever, and the Controller was driven to all sorts of ex- 
tremities to meet their incessant needs. Widespread ruin and 
disorder were the general results of his measures. It happened 
that bad harvests and great scarcity of food at this time 
brought the people in many provinces to the verge of starva- 
tion. Terray not only prohibited the free circulation of grain 
throughout the country, but even manoeuvred a * corner ' 
in it, thus making enormous profits out of the nation's 
misery. Then the story got abroad that lyouis himself was 
the principal party to this infamous pacte de famine. Actual 
proof of the allegation is wanting, though it seems to be 
well founded ; at any rate, the people believed it, and 
their minds were inflamed with impotent rage against their 
King. 

Callously indifferent to this ever-growing hatred, l/ouis 
continued his way of life unchanged to the end. On April 28 
he was taken suddenly ill ; his malady developed into smallpox ; 
and of this loathsome disease he died on M^y 10, having, as 
we are solemnly informed, evinced at the last a truly Christian 
penitence. So passed I^ouis le Bien-aime ; so appropriately 
closed what has been justly described as the most disgraceful 
reign in French history. It is significant that while in general 
the great dignitaries of the Church, after their sycophantic 
wont, eulogized the dead reprobate in the customary tone of 

453 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

nauseating flattery, one at least, the Bishop of Alais, boldly 
spoke of the evil example he had set to his subjects. As for 
the nation at large, it received the news of his death with 
universal satisfaction. His obsequies were made the occasion 
of popular rejoicings, and his memory was lampooned in 
ballads and pasquinades. 



454 



CHAPTER X 
LOUIS XVI 

FROM HIS ACCKSSION TO 1789 

WHEN the late King's grandson ascended the throne in 
his twentieth year ^ it was a critical hour both for 
the sovereign and for France. For many years, as 
observers like Montesquieu had clearly seen, 2 the country 
had been drifting toward revolution. While the authority 
of the Crown was still absolute in name, it was matter of 
common knowledge that I/Ouis XV himself had been little 
more than a puppet in the hands of corrupt women and rapa- 
cious officials, and the personal prestige of the monarchy had 
thus been fatally discredited. Meanwhile symptoms of dan- 
gerous unrest were everywhere apparent. Vague discontent 
was being sharpened into a specific sense of injustice. The 
wrongs and miseries of the people were being openly discussed 
and the misdoings of the Government boldly challenged. The 
air was filled with talk and speculation, and the theories of 
the philosophers were freely bandied about the streets.^ Even 
at Court a conflict was already arising between old ideas and 
new, while outside aristocratic circles, and especially among 
thoughtful members of the middle classes, the general reaction 
against all the principles on which the ancient order had rested 
was steadily growing in strength and volume. The situation 

1 Ivouis XVI was the only surviving son of lyonis XV's only son, Ivouis of 
France, who had died in 1765. 

2 See, e.g., his letters of April 13, 1752, and December 25, 1753- 

* A traveller who at the beginning of the reign of I^ouis XVI returned to 
France after some years of absence was asked what change he noticed in 
the nation. " None," he replied, " except that what used to be talked about 
in the drawing-rooms is now repeated in the streets " (Taine, L'Ancien Rigime, 
]Rng. trans., p. 317). 

. 455 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

was therefore one which demanded in the ruler called upon 
to face its problems a combination of the highest qualities 
of statesmanship — sagacity, judgment, energy, tact, decision. 
Unfortunately these were the qualities in which J ouis XVI 
was conspicuously wanting. Of vigorous physique, fond of 
manly exercises, yet finding particular pleasure in mechanical 
pursuits, such as lock-making, this ill-starre(^ king was for 
the rest a man of simple tastes, temperate, decent in his private 
life, and sincerely religious. He had, moreover, a thoroughly 
good heart and was honestly desirous of ministering to the 
welfare of his people. But he was at the same time feeble in 
character, unintelligent, narrow-minded, timid, and irresolute. 
As M, Albert Sorel has said of him, he knew how to do many 
things — ^to love, to pardon, to suffer, to die ; but he did not 
know how to reign. This essential weakness was his individual 
contribution to the destructive forces of his time. To a large 
extent, of course, he paid the penalty of his predecessors' 
sins ; ' he came too late to undo the mischief which they had 
done, and where they had sown the wind he had to reap the 
whirlwind for his harvest. Yet we cannot ignore the fact 
that his own pitiful inefficiency was one cause of his tragic 
failure. 

M ARI E- AnTO I N ETTE 

The evil influence exerted over him directly and indirectly 
by his wife must also be emphasized. From the very outset 
Marie- Antoinette, as an Austrian princess, had been unpopular 
in France, and her unpopularity increased as she came, not 
without reason, to be suspected of caring much more about 
the country of her birth than about that of her adoption. 
Barely fifteen at the time of her marriage, four years before 
lyouis' accession, she brought with her to the formal and 
punctilious Court of Versailles the freer manners to which she 
had been accustomed at home, and by her rather reckless 
disregard of etiquette and convention created scandals by 
which her reputation suffered. There was, indeed, no real 
ground for the charges whispered against her, but none the 
456 







M 

o 

I 

w 
< 



CO 




> 






LOUIS XVI 

less, like the famous affair of the diamond necklace some years 
later/ they gave a convenient handle to prejudice. As she 
grew older, however, and especially after she became Queen, 
though she lost little of her frivolity, other and more in- 
jurious elements in her character came to the surface. She 
now showed herself self-willed, supercilious, and domineering. 
Conscious of possessing far more strength of mind and purpose 
than her husband, she arrogated to herself the prerogatives 
of royalty. Henceforth she was always interfering, and in 
general most injudiciously, in State affairs and State appoint- 
ments, until her meddlesome habits even aroused the anxiety 
of her mother and called forth a private reproof from her 
brother, the Kmperor Joseph. Educated as she had been 
in the severest principles of absolutism, she carried with her 
into her new environment a spirit of obstinate hostility to all 
liberal ideas, and in respect of every effort made toward reform 
constituted herself the leader of the obstructionists and the 
reactionaries. Thus as she gained more and more power over 
lyouis' sluggish mind she used that power almost entirely for 
evil. As to-day we look back into the last years of the Old 
Regime through the medium of after-events, our recollection 
of Marie-Antoinette's terrible fate and of the courage with 
which she met it is apt to turn the edge of our judgment. 
The impartial historian has still to record that this haughty 
and unyielding woman must in the measure of her influence 
be held responsible for blunders which in their consequences 
were as serious as crimes. 

lyouis' first act as King was to dismiss Mme du Barry, and, 
with the help of the Count of Maurepas, whom he placed at 
the head of his Council, to make a clean sweep of the trium- 

1 The affair of the diamond necklace (1784-85), the chief actors in which 
were a notorious adventuress named Jeanne de la Motte, her husband, and 
the vain and fatuous Cardinal de Rohan, was a plot to obtain possession 
by false pretences of a wonderful necklace originally meant for Mme du Barry, 
who, however, had been banished before its completion. The populace of 
Paris, who were well aware of the Queen's inordinate extravagance, imagined 
that she was herself privy to the conspiracy, and this erroneous view greatly 
stimulated their animus against her at a time when for other reasons she 
was generally detested. 

457 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

virate. This was all for the good. But the choice of Prime 
Minister was ill-advised. Maurepas, who had held various 
offices under I^ouis XV years before, and in 1749 had been 
exiled for an epigram on Mme de Pompadour, was now a man 
of seventy-three, clever in a superficial way, but frivolous 
and cynical, and therefore very obviously not the right person, 
in the circumstances, to be entrusted with the destinies of the 
country. As changeable as a weathercock,^ he had neither 
settled convictions nor definite policy, and merely toyed 
with public opinion. Even he, however, soon perceived that 
stronger heads were required, and he therefore called to his 
aid, along with several other counsellors, the well-known pub- 
licist Turgot, first as Minister of Marine and then (August 
1774) as Controller-General, of Finances, and Turgot's ardent 
admirer, Malesherbes. 

The Ministry of Turcot 

A^ine-Robert- Jacques Turgot was born in Paris in 1727, 
and after a brilliant career at the Sorbonne abandoned his 
original intention of entering the Church, devoted himself to 
the law, and soon began to make a mark by writings which 
gave him a place of distinction among the economists and the 
philosophes of the time. In 1761 he was appointed Intendant 
of lyimoges, a position which he held for thirteen years, during 
which time he laboured hard and patiently to ameliorate the 
condition of the people of lyimousin, then sunk in poverty, 
ignorance, and vice, by the introduction of a number of social 
and economic reforms which he had already worked out in 
theory. His transference to the Ministry of Finances then 
provided him with the opportunity of trying on a large-scale 
and for the whole of France the experiments which he had 
made with success on a small scale and in a single province. 
In the memorable letter which he addressed to the King on 
taking office, he briefly outlined his policy : 

" Your Majesty has been good enough to permit me to 
place on record the engagement you have taken upon you 
to sustain me in the execution of those plans of economy 

458 



LOUIS XVI 

which are at all times, and to-day more than ever, of an indis- 
pensable necessity. ... At this moment, Sire, I confine myself 
to recalling to you these three words : No Bankruptcy ; No 
Increase of Taxes ; No lyoans. No bankruptcy, either avowed 
or disguised -by illegal reductions. No increase of taxes, the 
reason for this being in the condition of your people, and still 
more in that of Your Majesty's own generous heart. No 
loans, because every loan diminishes always the free revenue 
and necessitates at the end of a certain time either bankruptcy 
or the increase of taxes. ... To meet these points there is 
but one means. It is to reduce expenditure below revenue, 
and sufficiently below it to ensure each year a saving of twenty 
millions [of livres] to be applied in the redemption of old 
debts. Without that, the first gunshot will force the State 
to bankruptcy.'* 

His programme of financial and economic reform was boldly 
conceived and comprehensive, for it included reduction in 
the cost of collecting the taxes ; the suppression of many 
abuses in their incidence and distribution, and in particular 
the destruction of the immunities of the privileged classes ; 
the substitution for various feudal dues, such as the corvee 
(or forced labour of peasants on public roads), of a regular 
impost on landed property ; free trade in grain throughout 
the kingdom ; the removal of the vexatious fiscal barriers 
(douanes interieures) which prevented natural commercial 
intercourse between province and province ; and the abolition 
of the old trade guilds {jurandes), which had long exercised a 
vicious control over labour. Nor do these measures exhaust 
the list of his enterprises. He also outlined a system of 
national education and a scheme of interconnected elective 
assemblies, beginning with the parish and ending with the 
State, the functions of which, however, were to be, not legis- 
lative, but merely deliberative ; while in a proposal for the rati- 
fication of Protestant marriages he took what he meant to be 
the first step in a general policy of religious toleration. 

At the outset this great minister had the support of the 
King, who once remarked : " Je vois bien qu'il n'y a que 

459 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

M. Turgot et moi qui aimoiis le peuple." But, as his letter 
to lyouis shows, he had clearly foreseen the antagonism which 
he was certain to arouse among those — and they were many — 
whose advantage lay in the maintenance of the evils he had 
set out to attack. Before long he had the nobles, the higher 
clergy, the farmers of taxes, the great financiers, the trading 
corporations, ranged in a solid mass against, him. The corn 
riots of 1775, deliberately fomented, it is believed, by his 
opponents, weakened his influence in the country at large. 
A little later he came into conflict with the Parliament of 
Paris, which, together with the provincial Parliaments, had 
been restored, against his advice, by Maurepas, and was now 
behaving as factiously as ever. Then the Queen, who dis- 
liked his liberalism and was determined to thwart his plans, 
beean to intrigue against him with the ever- jealous Maurepas. 
lyouis was too weak to resist so much pressure, and especially 
that brought to bear upon him by his wife, and he was the 
more' ready to yield because, though he warmly approved of 
Turgot 's policy, his religious prejudices were ruffled by his 
free-thinking : however admirable his statesmanship, the im- 
portant fact remained that he did not go to IVIass ! Turgot, 
on his side, though the very incarnation of integrity, was 
neither conciliatory nor tactful enough to deal successfully 
with so many powerful foes ; his relations with the King were 
soon strained to breaking-point ; and on May 12, 1776, he 
was dismissed, having held office for just twenty months. 
His removal w-as accompanied by the resignation of the high- 
minded and public-spirited Malesherbes, who in earlier years 
as president of the Cour des Aides and censor of the press had 
laboured indefatigably in the cause of justice and toleration, 
and who as minister had given his friend substantial help in 
his work for reform. 

The fall of Turgot was hailed with delight by the Court and 
viewed with consternation by Voltaire, Condorcet, and the 
whole philosophic party, who rightly saw in it an irreparable 
misfortune to the country. What might have happened had 
he been allowed a free hand in the carrying out of his programme 
460 



LOUIS XVI 

it is of course idle to speculate. But the judgment of history 
is that his dismissal was lyouis' gravest mistake and the real 
crisis of his reign. " With him," as M, Sorel has well said, 
" vanished all hope of recasting the Government in its ancient 
mould."! 

The Ministry of Necker 

Reaction triumphed all along the line under the brief rule 
of Turgot's successor, Clugny : the corvee was re-established, 
the jurandes restored, and free trade in grain suppressed. 
Then, as the finances were again lapsing into absolute anarchy, 
and all that Clugny could propose to meet the swelling deficit 
was a State lottery, Maurepas called to his aid the great banker 
Jacques Necker, who had already lent money to the Govern- 
ment and had distinguished himself as a writer by a pamphlet 
in opposition to Turgot's free-trade policy. Though Swiss 
by birth, Necker had made his fortune in Paris, where the 
salon of his wife, the charming and accomplished Suzanne 
Curchod,^ had long been a centre of intellectual activity, but 
the fact that he was a foreigner and a Protestant debarred 
him from a seat in the Council, and he took office, not as 
Controller-General, but as Director, first of the Treasury (1776) 
and then of the finances (1777). A vain and showy man, he 
was at the same time honest and hard-working, and his 
thorough business training stood him in good stead. Rejecting 
all the doctrinaire schemes of Turgot, of which his practical 
temper made him contemptuous, he addressed himself to the 
task of readjusting the taxes, introducing more order and 
system into their administration, and devising various expe- 
dients to meet the liabilities of the State, one of which, a new 
loan (January 1778), proved a great success. 

War with England 

Unfortunately for Necker, his difficulties were greatly in- 
creased by a new turn in foreign affairs. On July 4, 1776, 

^ L' Europe et la Revolution fran^aise, t. i, p. 213. 

* Who earlier in life had been engaged to Gibbon, The only daughter 
of M, and Mme Necker became famous in literary history as Mme de Stael. 

461 



HISTORY OP FRANCE 

the British colonies in North America proclaimed their inde- 
pendence and entered upon the struggle which was to end 
in the establishment of the United States. Hatred of Britain 
and a rankling sense of humiliation left by the memory of 
the Seven Years' War made the cause of the colonists immensely 
popular in France, but the influence first of Turgot and then 
of Necker and the natural antipathy of the King ('' dont le 
metier etait d'etre royaliste ") to an association with repub- 
licanism prevented the Government for some time from 
entering the lists against its ancient foe. Finally, however, 
the diplomacy of Franklin and the clamour of the nation 
carried the day, and in February 1778 two treaties, one of 
commerce, the other of defensive alliance, were signed with 
the United States. The inevitable result was that France and 
Bngland were soon again at war. The astonishing power of 
Choiseul's strengthened fleet was now apparent ; during the 
first stages of the war, indeed, the French navy had practical 
command of the sea, to the enormous advantage of the American 
forces in their own campaigns, though Rodney's decisive victory 
over de Grasse ofl Jamaica in April 1782 ultimately restored 
the supremacy of the British flag. Meanwhile, however, Sene- 
gal, Gambia, Sierra I^eone, St Vincent, Grenada, Demerara, 
St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Tobago, and Minorca had succes- 
sively fallen into the hands of the French, while British dominion 
in India was also threatened by Admiral de Suflren's capture 
of Trincomalee. By this time, thoroughly beaten in the field, 
overweighted by a European coalition, and badly shaken by 
dissensions at home, England was glad to acknowledge the 
independence of her former colonies and to bring the war to 
a close. Under the Treaty of Versailles (1783) most of the 
territory acquired by the belligerents was reciprocally restored ; 
but France was allowed to retain various possessions in India, 
the Antilles, and Africa, while the articles in the Treaties of 
Utrecht and Paris respecting the fortifications of Dunkerque 
were cancelled. Moreover, the moral prestige of the nation in 
the eyes of the world was now in large measure retrieved. 
Not without justification it was felt that the part which France 
462 



LOUIS XVI 

had played in the American War of Independence had wiped 
out the disgrace of the ruinous Seven Years' War. 

None the less such success, notable as it was, did nothing 
to benefit the Government or the country. On the contrary, 
the additional strain which had necessarily been imposed on 
the finances only aggravated internal evils. Necker wrestled 
manfully with his hopeless task, and managed to provide the 
sinews of war. But before the end came he had himself fallen 
from power. His policy of retrenchment had made him ob- 
noxious to the Queen. His attempted reforms had aroused 
the hostility of many vested interests. In reply to his critics 
he published in 1781 a famous document, entitled Compte 
rendu au Roi, in which he undertook to provide a plain state- 
ment of the nation's position and incidentally to justify his 
own methods. This work created an immense sensation, but 
while it had the effect its author intended of inducing capitalists 
to lend money to the State, it also stirred up a host of enemies 
against him. In order to strengthen his position he now 
demanded from Maurepas a seat in the Council. This was 
refused on the score of his religion. Upon this he resigned 
(May 178 1) and retired to Geneva, followed by the regrets of 
all patriotic Frenchmen, who regarded his departure as a public 
calamity. 

The Eve of Disaster : Calonne 

Necker's labours represent the last serious efforts of I^ouis' 
Government to set their house in order and avert the impending 
catastrophe. Once more relieved of the irritating interference 
of reforming ministers, the careless Court abandoned itself 
afresh to its frivolous pleasures in utter indifference to any 
day of reckoning which might possibly be in store. Turgot 
and Necker alike had preached economy. The Queen herself 
now set the pace for a renewed orgy of extravagance. Favours 
and pensions were multiplied ; the festivities at Versailles 
were on a scale of extraordinary magnificence ; money was 
even squandered on new palaces at Saint-Cloud and Ram- 
bouillet. Then when Marie-Antoinette and her little group 

463 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of intimates grew weary for the moment of the excitement and 
dissipation they retired together to the Petit Trianon, where 
they milked the cows, fished in the lake, and, like shepherds 
and shepherdesses out of a conventional pastoral, amused 
themselves in pla3dng at rustic simplicity. In the meantime 
the poor King, too feeble to check what he did not approve, 
lived very much apart, spending most of his time in hunting 
and lock-making. 

For the rest, in those actively responsible for his government 
there was no longer either statesmanship or honesty. Maurepas 
died within a few months of Necker's resignation, and no new 
Prime Minister was appointed. But the control of the finances, 
after a couple of insignificant stop-gaps had demonstrated 
their own futility, was entrusted to Charles-Alexandre de 
Calonne, who held the position from November 1783 till April 
1787. Calonne was a clever but totally unscrupulous man, 
who could juggle with figures in a way to dazzle the uninitiated, 
btft was wholly destitute of political wisdom. He captivated 
the vacillating King, however, by his charming manners and 
easy, seductive speech, and made himself popular with the 
Queen and the Court by discarding the parsimonious counsels 
of his precursors and openly encouraging extravagance on 
the ground that a general display of wealth was necessary to 
attract capital for the loans with which he designed to carry 
on the business of the State. Then when, having borrowed 
487 millions of livres, he found himself unable any longer to 
live from hand to mouth, by a sudden right-about-face he 
turned reformer, and laid before the King a plan for the 
readjustment of taxation. '* But this is Necker pure and 
simple ! " said I^ouis in his astonishment. " Sire," replied 
Calonne with calm effrontery, " I could not possibly offer 
you anything better." Naturally tliis absolute change of 
policy turned his former supporters at Court into foes. But 
in the hope of bearing down all opposition he advised the 
King to convene an Assembly of Notables, who should, of 
course, be merely the nominees and creatures of the Crown. 
Already there was a widespread movement for the revival of 
464 



LOUIS XVI 

the States-General, but this suggestion was too revolutionary 
to be considered, and Calonne persevered in his own design, 
hoping in this way at once to satisfy public opinion and to 
make his own position secure. The Notables accordingly met 
in February 1787. In his characteristically optimistic speech 
to them the Controller first painted a rosy picture of the 
prosperity of the country and then passed on to outline the 
schemes by which he proposed to meet the appalling deficit to 
which he had to confess. But the Notables did not prove as 
amenable as he had anticipated. They refused to entertain 
his suggestions ; and the more advanced among them — 
prominent among whom was I^a Fayette, who had imbibed 
liberal ideas while fighting for Washington in America — ^insisted 
on an appeal to the States-General. As I^ouis himself now 
abandoned him, Calonne's tenure of office came to an ignomi- 
nious close. 

LOMENIE DE BrIENNE AS MiNISTER OF FiNANCE 

Calonne's collapse would have been an immense advantage 
to the country had there been any better man ready to take 
his place. But things were little likely to improve under the 
rule of his successor, the ambitious, vulgar, and short-sighted 
Archbishop of Toulouse, lyomenie de Brienne, who owed his 
position mainly to the influence of the Queen. The country 
was now seething with excitement ; talk of reforms of the 
most radical kind filled the air ; the demand for the convoca- 
tion of the States-General grew more and more insistent. 
But, heedless of these unmistakable omens of approaching 
storm, Brienne resolved to use the power of the King, whose 
personal popularity was still undiminished, to enforce his own 
schemes. The Notables were therefore dismissed and the 
edicts of the new Controller submitted to the Parliament of 
Paris. Then began the last struggle between that body and 
the Crown. The Parliament's reply was that neither the 
King nor the Parliament itself was competent to levy the taxes 
proposed, and that " the nation represented by the States- 
General alone had the power to grant to the King such subsidies 

2 G 465 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

as had been proved absolutely necessary." This was a direct 
challenge in uncompromising terms to royal authority. Plucking 
up his courage to meet it, lyouis summoned the refractory 
magistrates to Versailles, and there, by the traditional method 
of the ' bed of justice,' compelled them to register the edicts 
in question. The next day, however, the Parliament declared 
that this enforced registration was null and void. The King's 
rejoinder, again according to long-standing precedent, was to 
send the Parliament into exile (August 15, 1787). But the 
time had now gone by when by these ancient devices abso- 
lutism could assert itself with safety and effect. It was useless 
for the distracted King to fall back upon the doctrine of his 
autocracy, and to reply to protests regarding the legality of 
his procedure with an impatient '* C'est legal parce que je le 
veux." Words like these would have been well enough on 
the lips of the fourteenth I^ouis ; on those of the sixteenth 
they were an empty boast. Public agitation now assumed 
dangerous proportions. Though, as it happened, the disputed 
edicts really aimed at the equalizing of taxation, the public 
at large were indifferent to this aspect of the matter, seeing 
in the King's treatment of the Parliament only a despotic 
attempt on the part of the Crown to deprive the nation of a 
voice in the management of its own affairs. The disgraced 
magistrates were followed out of the city by excited crowds. 
The elder of the King's brothers, the Count of Provence 
(* Mpnsieur '), who had expressed democratic opinions in the 
Assembly of Notables, received an enthusiastic welcome when 
he appeared in the streets. On the other hand, the press i 
teemed with pamphlets against the Government, with satires, 
with caricatures. The King himself was on the whole immune 
from these attacks. But the hatred of Marie- Antoinette — 
* I'Autrichienne,' ' Madame Deficit ' — was so intense that, 
at the request of the police, who dreaded violence, she no 
longer showed herself in the capital. 



466 



LOUIS XVI 

The Last Months of the Old Regime 

The perplexity of the Government was now so great that 
it had to abandon its despotic tone and resort to compromise. 
Negotiations were opened with the exiled Parliament at Troyes, 
which at length consented to register the edicts after they 
had been amended in various particulars. Upon this the 
Parliament returned to Paris amid the acclamations of the 
populace (November 1787). But the same old question of 
registration arose over the very next edicts which were pre- 
sented, and at this point the Government decided to have 
recourse to heroic measures and to crush the opposition of 
the magistrates once and for all by what was virtually, if 
not in form, a repetition of Maupeou's coup d'etat. On May 8 
the Parliament was summoned to Versailles, where a compre- 
hensive programme of reform was laid before it, which it 
was required to accept on the spot. This programme contained 
many admirable proposals. But it also included a plan for 
the transference of the extra-judicial functions assumed by 
the Parliament to a new body — the Cour Pleniere — which was 
to be instituted for the purpose. The outcry which followed 
the proclamation of these edicts was loud enough to convince 
the King and his advisers that they had totally misjudged the 
force and direction of public opinion. The Parliament stood 
solid in its resistance to the Government. A demand for the 
immediate convocation of the States-General arose all over 
the land. Feeling in the provinces ran so high that in many 
places^ — as in Dauphine and Brittany — there were rioting and 
disorder. Before this outburst of popular anger the King, 
with national bankruptcy staring him in the face, was forced 
to recoil. To the very last he clung to the hope that the 
appeal to the country might yet be avoided. But in May 
1788 a proclamation was issued convening the States for the 
following spring. 

In the midst of all this excitement Brienne had held to 
office, but public hostility at length became so strong that he 
was forced to resign. The nation had long been clamouring 

467 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

for the recall of Necker. Much against his will the King had 
to give way on this point also. But Necker did nothing to 
allay the passions of the country, nor did his temporary 
measures arouse any interest either in the capital or outside. 
Through the memorable winter of 1788-89 all France, on the 
tiptoe of expectation, was awaiting the one great event — the 
meeting of its ancient representative parlianient — ^which, as 
was universally believed, was to inaugurate a new era of 
freedom , justice, and prosperity for the entire people. 



468 



CO 

O 

(^ 

O 

pq 

W 

K 
H 




BOOK V 

THE REVOLUTION AND 
THE EMPIRE 

I789-1815 

CHAPTER I 

PRELIMINARY 

" ^nr^HE Revolution/* wrote de Tocqueville, "was not 
I a fortuitous event. If it had not taken place, the 
^JL old social structure would equally have fallen, 
sooner in one place and later in another ; only it would have 
crumbled away by degrees, instead of falling with a crash." ^ 
" Ivong before the final crash," wrote Taine, France was '^ in 
a state of dissolution." ^ Xhe truth of these statements must 
be apparent to any one who follows the course of French 
history during the eighteenth century, even in such broad 
outlines as alone have been possible to us here. But a few 
pages of recapitulation and addition may be desirable before 
we pass on to the crash itself. 

The Decay of Absolutism 

In the last years of the Old Regime the fabric of I^ouis XIV's 
political system was still standing intact. In accordance with 
the principles finally formulated by him, the monarchy was 
absolute ; no limitation of any kind was imposed upon its 
authority ; the King was an irresponsible ruler ; he could 
make peace or war of his own volition ; the whole internal 
administration was in his hands ; he was superior to all the 

* On the State of Society in France before the Revolution, English trans., 
p. 25- 

' L'Ancien Rdgime, I^ivre I, chap. iv. 

470 



PRELIMINARY 

machinery of law, which with his arbitrary lettres de cachet he 
could override at his will. No public opinion was recognized ; 
no vestige of popular liberty remained. Religious freedom 
had disappeared with the suppression of the Huguenots ; the 
States-General had been almost forgotten ; even the Parlia- 
ments had at length been virtually silenced. Yet, as we have 
seen, though the forms of absolutism endured, the monarchy 
had fallen into decrepitude. The ruinous wars of lyouis XIV 
and the shameless orgies of his successor, with all the financial 
disasters which these had alike entailed, had not only fatally 
discredited the Crown itself in the eyes of the nation, but had 
even aroused adverse criticism regarding the principles upon 
which the whole political system rested. " The opinion gains 
ground everywhere," wrote a trustworthy exponent of the 
general feeling as early as 1757, '' that absolute monarchy is 
the worst conceivable form of government." ^ That opinion 
grew rapidly in the decades which followed. To the extent 
to which their own interests were bound up with its mainte- 
nance, the clergy and the nobility supported autocracy, but 
the middle classes were already openly hostile to it. They 
saw clearly how many reforms were needed by the country, 
and at the same time understood perfectly well how, one and 
all, such reforms would receive uncompromising opposition 
from a despotism which was concerned only to safeguard its 
own power. 

The Rise of the Middle Classes 

None the less forces were silently at work beneath the 
unchanging surface of things which no arbitrary authority 
could check and which made the continuance of the existing 
system impossible. This, as we can now see, was very 
obviously the case with the social order. The dividing lines 
between the so-called privileged classes — ^the clergy and the 

* D'Argenson, Journal. It may be of interest to recall the fact that Gold- 
smith, who was in France just before this, was convinced by what he saw that 
the French were " imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom" {The 
Citizen of the World, Letter LVI). 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

nobility — and the bourgeoisie — the merchants, traders, and 
professional men — were almost as sharply drawn as ever. 
The clergy were still protected by the wealthy and powerful 
corporation to which they belonged ; the nobles continued to 
form a definite caste, with many hereditary rights to which 
they clung, though their original feudal semi-independence of 
the Crown, and with this their feudal duties, had long since 
disappeared. But neither the clergy nor the nobility now 
held their ground unchallenged. The middle classes had begun 
to emerge as a new force in society after the final overthrow 
of the aristocracy in the Frondes, and with the development 
of commerce and industry during the eighteenth century they 
increased steadily in wealth, influence, and prestige. Even 
intellectual leadership now passed more and more into their 
hands, as wealth created leisure, and leisure brought with it 
fresh opportunities and tastes. It is a significant fact that 
while the young nobles, after the fashion of their fathers, were 
still spending their time in acquiring the gentlemanly arts of 
fencing, riding, and dancing, the serious work of education 
was going on among the bourgeoisie. " In the eighteenth 
century the great majority of the students in the colleges were 
the sons of citizens." ^ The real meaning of this new social 
movement was apparent at the time only to a few keen 
observers here and there, like Voltaire. ^ But there is ample 
evidence in general literature of the growing self -consciousness 
of the trading classes in regard to their importance in the 
State. It is noteworthy that on the stage they now begin 
to displace the aristocracy and to occupy the premier plan. 
In Sedaine's masterpiece, to cite only one example, Vanderk, 
the merchant, defends and eulogizes his calling in language 
which recalls that already used in more industrial and demo- 
cratic England by Steele's Sealand and lyillo's Thorowgood.^ 

^ Babeau, La Bourgeoisie d' Autrefois, p. 369. 

2 Le Siicle de Louis XV. 

' Le Philosophe sans le Savoir, Act II, Scene iv. The democratization of 
literature in France had begun, as we have seen, in the later seventeenth 
century {ante, pp. 409-411). In the later eighteenth century it was largely a 
literature of the middle classes. Hence the significance of the fact that 

472 



PRELIMINARY 

In the very nature of things it was impossible that the Third 
Kstate, thus increasing not only in power but also in the sense 
of power, should continue to acquiesce silently in the in- 
equalities of a system which profited by their labours and 
wealth while it denied to them rights to which their labours 
and wealth entitled them. 

The Condition of the People 

The growing discontent of the bourgeoisie was therefore 
manifestly an element of danger in the established order. 
Another element existed in the as yet wholly ignored and 
inarticulate mass beneath the bourgeoisie — the mass composed 
of the artisan classes in the towns and the peasantry in the 
country. The condition of the urban workman was servile 
and wretched ; he toiled hard for wages which scarcely sufficed 
to keep him out of want ; he was oppressed by the guilds, 
which largely controlled his fate ; he had little chance to rise 
above the narrow limitations of his precarious lot. That of 
the rural peasantry was even worse, for they lived as a rule 
from hand to mouth in a state of abject and hopeless misery. 
In their case, indeed, the hardships entailed by the old feudal 
system had in many ways been increased rather than diminished 
by the changes which were taking place elsewhere. In the 
old days the resident noble had been to some extent responsible 
for the welfare of the locality whose seigneur he was. Now 
the wealthy aristocracy flocked to Paris and Versailles, abandon- 
ing their feudal duties though they maintained their feudal 
claims, while those — and their number was large — whose 
poverty compelled them to live on their own soil were seldom 
able, even where they were willing, to fulfil their nominal 
obligations to their fiefs. In many instances, indeed, they 
were driven by their poverty to sell or farm out their seig- 
neurial rights ; whence arose all the abuses of non-resident 
ownership and the curse of the middleman. 

it was now greatly influenced by certain English writings — e.g., the Spectator, 
the navels of Defoe and Richardson, the plays of lyillo and Moore — in which 
the ideas and sentiments of the middle classes were clearly expressed. 

473 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

At the same time all local affairs not directly connected 
with the old feudal relationships had passed under the control 
of the Crown as represented by the intendant, his deputies, 
and a whole army of minor officials, whose arbitrary power 
had become an intolerable despotism, from which there was 
no appeal. So complete and so far-reaching was the bureau- 
cratic system that not a parish rate could be levied and not 
a church steeple repaired without the authority of the central 
Government. Beneath the crushing burden of this petty but 
uncontrolled officialism the whole country groaned in impotent 
unrest. 

■In any estimate of the forces behind the Revolution the 
greatest stress must be laid upon the deplorable state of the 
masses of the French people. ^ As the eighteenth century 
advanced their sufferings continued to increase ; in the last 
years of the Old Regime they had become acute. Agriculture, 
impeded by the complications of the antiquated land-system 
and by the dense ignorance of the farmers and peasants them- 
selves, had everywhere long been at a standstill, save that 
in many parts it was retrogressive. The failure of a single 
harvest — and in the circumstances failure often 6x:curred — 
meant literal starvation for thousands who depended on the 
soil, and famine and disease claimed so many victims that 
in some of the provinces the population was actually declining. 
Thus far little resolute effort had been made to grapple with 
these terrible facts, and would-be reformers, like Turgot, had 
found the obstructionists too much for them. Charity was 
unorganized ; there was no regular poor relief ; and repeated 
attempts to fix the price of food resulted in more harm than 
good. Destitution and despair produced their inevitable con- 
sequences. Bread riots were frequent all over the country. 
Beggars, vagabonds, and criminals multiplied. M,urders, high- 
way robberies, burglaries, smuggling, and poaching increased. 
The severest measures were adopted to stamp out these evils, 

^ For detailed evidence, for which no place can be found in a brief sketch, 
see, e.g., Arthur Young's well-known Travels in France and Taine's L'Ancien 
Rigime, I^ivre V. 

474 



PRELIMINARY 

and hundreds of persons were yearly imprisoned, sent to the 
galleys, or hanged. But vice and crime bred so fast that 
justice was unable to keep pace with them. A special feature 
of the situation which must also be recognized was the incessant 
influx of the vagrant, the disorderly, and the felonious into 
the towns, particularly, of course, into Paris. This is a fact 
to be borne in mind, for its direct connexion with the excesses 
of the rabble during the progress of the Revolution. 

Taxation under the Old Regime 

But we have not yet touched the real tap-root of all these 
evils. To reach that we must turn to the question of taxation. 
Again and again in the preceding pages we have had to speak, 
with almost monotonous iteration, of the financial anarchy of 
the country and of the shifts and devices of successive ministers, 
wise and unwise, to meet the ever-recurring problem of deficits 
and threatened bankruptcy. It was to consider this problem 
that, as we remember, the States-General were called together : 
a fact which shows that its critical character and the need of 
radical methods in the handling of it had at length been 
appreciated by the Government. And indeed it would seem 
that, revolution or no revolution, drastic action could not 
well be deferred, for the whole system of taxation from first 
to last was clumsy, wasteful, oppressive, and almost incredibly 
unjust. Some of the taxes were farmed : that is, the right 
to collect them was purchased for an annual payment in the 
lump by speculative contractors, who then made their profit 
out of them, with the result that, as we have seen, a large 
part of the nominal yield went into the pockets of the middle- 
men. Others, like the taille, the capitation, and the vingtidme, 
were kept in the hands of the agents of the central Government, 
who, however, in assessing and levying them proved them- 
selves as rapacious and as merciless as the tax-farmers them- 
selves.^ 

* The arbitrary reassessment every year of the taille (a tax on land and 
house property) by these agents was one of the most flagrant abuses of the 
time. It operated as a direct check upon thrift and industry. A case is 

475 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

But the most vicious feature of the system was not its 
complexity nor its absurdity, nor even the brutaHties which 
accompanied its administration, but its monstrous injustice. 
As members of the privileged classes, the clergy and the 
nobility enjoyed complete exemption from many of the taxes, 
while on all sorts of pretexts they contrived to evade their 
proper share in respect of others to which they were nominally 
liable.^ This was, of course, a standing grievance with the 
bourgeoisie. But many of the bourgeoisie of the towns acquired 
some of the privileges of their superiors by purchasing various 
offices, created for traffic by the State, which carried certain 
immunities with them. The consequence of this iniquitous 
condition of things was that the weak were crushed to benefit 
the strong and the poor bled to relieve the rich. The more 
capable a man was of contributing to the nation's expenses, 
the less, as Taine points out, he was required to contribute : 
" the heaviest burden of the load finally falls on the most 
indigent and most laborious class, on the small proprietor 
cultivating his own field, on the simple artisan with nothing 
but his tools and his hands, and, in general, on the inhabitants 
of villages." ^ Two of the most abominable taxes which thus 
ground the poor demand particular mention — ^the gabelle and 
the corvee. The former, which was farmed, was an impost 
on salt,^ and was all the more vexatious because the purchase 
of this article in specified quantities was made compulsory in 
the interests of the State, which held the monopoly of it. No 

recorded of a peasant begging his landlord not to mend the roof of his cottage, 
since this sign of increasing prosperity would inevitably mean an increase 
in the taille. 

1 Thus they were exempt from the taille itself, and though they paid the 
capitation (a property tax dating from the end of the seventeenth century), 
they gradually managed to elude the burden to the extent, it is calculated, 
of contributing only one-eighth of their real dues. Even in the reign of 
Ivouis XIV Vauban had declared that the " two bleeding wounds " of the 
country were " the army of tax-gatherers and the mismanagement and 
confusion of their business " and " the army of privileged persons who claim 
to be free from the ordinary taxation of the realm." 

* Op. cit., lyivre V, chap. ii. 

' For the origin of this see ante, p. 185. 

476 



PRfiLlMINARY 

tax caused more widespread discontent, and thousands of 
persons were punished with brutal severity for inability to 
pay or attempts to elude it by smuggling. The corvee, which 
was no less hateful, was a survival from feudal times ; it was 
a tax, not on property, but on life,^ the peasants being obliged 
for a certain number of days in the year to give their time and 
labour in making and repairing roads, and in other work 
required of them either by their lord (corvee seigneuriale) or 
by the State [corvee royale) . And in the meantime the burdens 
of the poor were increased and the financial demoralization 
of the country completed by multitudinous indirect taxes in 
one and another form. Province was separated from province 
by high tarifi walls, the internal custom imposts being levied 
with such rigour that even artisans who crossed the Rhone — 
say, from Dauphine into I/anguedoc — on their way to work 
had to pay on the day's food which they carried in their 
pockets, while the exorbitant octrois of the larger towns and 
the heavy excise duties on such articles of common consump- 
tion as candles, fuel, wine, grain, and flour artificially enhanced 
the prices of the prime necessaries of life. 

Intellectual Forerunners of the Revolution 

Such in brief outline were some of the social and financial 
conditions in France which were clearly making for a great 
crisis during the later eighteenth century. It remains for us to 
glance at the intellectual movement of the time in its bearings 
upon the Revolution. 

A prominent place in that movement must be assigned to 
the new school of political economists, or Physiocrats, on 
account of their direct advocacy of specific financial reforms. 
Many of the cardinal doctrines of this school had been antici- 
pated quite early in the century by Vauban in his Dime royale 
(published in 1707), a book which he vainly attempted to bring 
to the notice of lyouis XIV. But its real founder and leader 
was Frangois Quesnay, who for some years was medical adviser 
to Mme de Pompadour, and at the time of his death in 1774 
1 Though in some parts a pecuniary tax was substituted. 

477 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

was first physician to the King ; while after Quesnay its chief 
adherents were the Marquis of Mirabeau (father of a more 
famous son), lycmercier de la Riviere, author of L'Ordre naturel 
et essentiel des Societes politiques, the Abbe Morellet, and, 
finally, Turgot, whose attempts as Intendant of lyimousin and 
Finance Minister to put the theories of the school into practice 
have already been described. Those theories were deduced 
from certain abstract principles. Societies should rest on 
natural foundations and should be governed by natural laws, 
interference with which can lead only to disaster. Hence the 
attack of the Physiocrats upon the jurandes and the douanes 
interieures, their insistence upon the complete freedom of 
labour and trade, and their famous formula, ** I^aissez faire, 
laissez aller." Holding as they did that land is the one 
ul-^imate source of all wealth, they argued that agriculture is 
the only enterprise that really increases the wealth of a com- 
munity ; industry merely transforms and commerce merely 
circulates that which agriculture produces. Their proposed 
readjustment of the whole financial system followed from 
these data. The Physiocrats were not political radicals ; 
Quesnay, for example, explicitly maintained the necessity of 
an intelligent despotism. But their teachings were openly 
hostile to the immunities of the privileged classes and to the 
entire economic structure of the Old Regime. 

The theories of the Physiocrats, however, necessarily appealed 
only to a limited public. For the wider development of the 
subversive movement in eighteenth-century thought we have 
to turn to general literature. Attempts have been made by 
some recent historians to minimize the influence of the so-called 
intellectual forerunners of the Revolution, and it is possible, 
indeed, that the direct effect of their writings has occasionally 
been exaggerated. Yet indirectly, by making men think 
about many things as they had never thought before, and 
by stimulating a spirit of unrest, inquiry, and criticism which 
in the long run was bound to be fatal to the dogmatic founda- 
tions of the traditional order, they certainly helped to prepare 
the way for the great upheaval and to form " the generation 

478 



PRELIMINARY 

of '89." The philosophes and their unattached followers were 
not responsible for the Revolution ; but without reference to 
them no account of the forces behind it would be complete. 

The great forerunner of the philosophic party was Montes- 
quieu, whose Esprit des Lois (1748) laid the foundations of 
the modern science of jurisprudence. In that monumental 
and epoch-making work Montesquieu undertakes a systematic 
study, historical and comparative, of the principal forms of 
government and the aims and methods of legislation ; but 
though this study is conducted with critical impartiality, it is 
none the less an argument against despotism and the whole 
theory of ' divine right ' as expounded by Bossuet, and in 
favour of regulated freedom and a constitutional monarchy 
on the English model. Twenty-seven years before this, in a 
work of a very different character, the Lettres persanes (1721), 
the great jurist had already turned his pungent wit upon the 
manners, customs, and beliefs of society under the Regency. 
Beneath the brilliant badinage of this " most serious of frivolous 
books " there is much searching and deadly criticism not only 
of the social conventions but even of the political institutions 
of the time. 

Three years after the appearance of L' Esprit des Lois Denis 
Diderot, with the assistance of the celebrated mathematician 
d' Alembert, began the publication of one of the most impor- 
tant works of the century, the Encyclopedic. The successive 
volumes of this immense undertaking (which was not completed 
till 1765) were made the occasion of violent attacks by the 
conservatives in Church and State ; repeated efforts were made 
to prohibit its circulation ; and Diderot himself, as its leading 
spirit, was in continual danger of prosecution and imprison- 
ment. These facts show that the real meaning of the Ency- 
clopedie was fully appreciated by those who were anxious at 
all costs to stop the spread of the new ideas. It was, indeed, 
the first great systematic work of the rising philosophic party, 
and the first organized expression of the principles for which 
they stood. The editors had been successful in gathering 
about them a body of writers who represented the most 

479 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

advanced knowledge of their time in their own special sub- 
jects, and were, moreover, known for their sympathy with 
liberty, enlightenment, and progress ; these collaborators in- 
cluded such men as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Holbach, 
Morellet, Condorcet, Quesnay, and Turgot. As an. encyclo- 
paedia it was, of course, primarily a repository of informa- 
tion. But incidentally it was much more than this. It was 
also a vast storehouse of facts and theories for those who were 
in any way engaged in doing battle with the forces of oppres- 
sion and obscurantism. All questions — social, political, philo- 
sophical, religious — ^were treated in it with an entire freedom 
from the bias of tradition and with scant respect for " the 
wisdom of our ancestors " and the sanctity of the past. Its 
temper was aggressively modern. Kven the large place given 
in i^ to science, industry, and the useful arts was significant 
of its progressive spirit. 

While much, however, was done by the Encydopedie to 
disseininate this spirit, it was the consummate man of letters 
Voltaire who by the magic of his brilliant style, his abounding 
wit, and his unflagging vivacity did most to popularize the 
ideas of the philosophic party, of which for some forty years 
he was the acknowledged leader. Many erroneous views are 
current in this country about Voltaire, who commonly figures 
in general thought as an iconoclastic radical and the very 
incarnation of the Mephistophelian spirit of denial. In fact, 
he was in many respects strongly conservative. He accepted 
civilization, even the civilization of his time, with gratitude, 
and humorously protested against Rousseau's propaganda of 
" back to nature." He was not in revolt against society. He 
had little sympathy with the masses. Nor was he in any 
true sense a democrat. While his early residence in England 
(1726-29) had taught him to admire the political freedom 
which that country enjoyed under its limited monarchy, ^ his 

* See in particular his Lettres philosophiques or Lettres sur les Anglais (1734), 
in which he eulogizes the political system of England, and under the veil of 
this eulogy delivers a telling, though indirect, attack upon the despotism 
which crushed down the life of France. The polemical point of this little 
480 




o 

00 



< 

tn 

P 
O 




H 

t-r 
o 
> 






PRELIMINARY 

later sojourn in Prussia and his relations with Frederick the 
Great had impressed him with the importance of the strong 
man. For France he desired a peaceful revolution only — a 
fundamental change in men's minds, and not any radical 
change in the political or social system. Voltaire certainly 
had no new gospel to propound for the salvation of the human 
race. But he was none the less one of the great liberalizing 
and progressive forces of his century, because from first to 
last he was the fearless champion of tolerance and freedom of 
thought. His attack was delivered in particular against what 
is unreasonable — against injustice, oppression, superstition, 
war, and the lust of war. " God and lyiberty " — the phrase 
which he used, in English, in giving his blessing to Franklin's 
little grandson — was his watchword. Hence the lifelong cam- 
paign which he carried on against the Church, which was for 
him the embodiment of everything which he most abhorred. 
His incessant and often venomous assaults upon the whole 
system and creed of ecclesiastical Christianity are chiefly 
responsible for the antipathy with which he is frequently 
regarded by pious people even in our own day. But when 
we remember what the French Church of the eighteenth 
century really was — a vast and powerful organization which 
fattened upon the public wealth while it refused to bear its 
share of the public burdens ; when we remember that its 
bigoted obscurantism and tyrannous insistence upon the 
minutiae of dogma were accompanied by widespread moral 
laxity and by open profligacy in its high places ; when we 
remember the ferocity of its persecuting spirit as expressed, 
for example, in the hideous tragedies of the Calas family 
and I^a Barre : when we remember these things, we realize 
how much justification there was for Voltaire's clarion call, 
" Bcrasez I'Infame ! " 

Yet, immense as was Voltaire's prestige and the power 
which he wielded as the foremost European man of letters 

book was well understood. The Parliament of Paris condemned it to be 
burned " as scandalous, contrary to religion, to morality, and to the respect 
due to authority." 

2 H 481 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of his age, the premier place among the precursors of the 
Revolution does not after all belong to him. That place is 
incontestably occupied by Rousseau, who, according to the 
testimony of Mallet du Pan, '' had a hundred times more 
readers among the middle and lower classes than Voltaire." 
The names of the two men are closely associated in everyday 
thought and speech, and even in the pages of literary history. 
It is necessary, therefore, to lay stress on the fact that they 
had hardly an idea or ideal in common. At several impor- 
tant points in particular they stand in the sharpest contrast. 
Voltaire was by temper an aristocrat. By sentiment as by 
birth Rousseau was entirely plebeian. Voltaire had no quarrel 
with even a decadent civilization, the absurdities of which he 
satirized but which he sought neither to undo nor to reconstruct. 
In his absolute antagonism to civilization Rousseau was at 
on6e reactionary and Utopian. Voltaire, as I have said, knew 
nothing of the zeal for practical reform. Rousseau, in his 
odd 'fashion, was a practical reformer through and through, 
and in endeavouring to destroy existing institutions was 
always haunted by the vision of a better and purer social 
state and inspired by the desire to help toward its realization. 
His wild, paradoxical, inconsistent teachings penetrated down 
to the very root of things. Kven the famous tirade against 
all the boasted arts and refinements of civilization with which 
he startled the public in his prize essay of 1749, and which 
he renewed in different forms in later writings, hopelessly 
unsound and fantastic as it was, had at least the merit of 
forcing upon the minds of his readers the essential contrast 
between the real man and the factitious man — between 
*' rhomme de nature," or man as beneficent nature intended 
him to be, and *' I'homme de I'homme," or man as he has 
been perverted by the malign influences of an artificial society. 
His evangel of a " return to nature," though at bottom 
flagrantly absurd, at least suggested the need of simplification 
and the possibility of a reversion to a saner mode of life. ** By 
his passionate protest against what man has actually ' made 
of man ' ; by his vehement and oft-repeated attack upon 
482 



PRELIMINARY 

concrete abuses ; by his prophetic denunciation of the greed, 
callousness, and depravity of those who sat in high places ; 
by his eloquent appeals on behalf of the poor, toiling, down- 
trodden masses, ' groaning without hope under the burden of 
oppressions,' he lifted high the standard of the new democracy." ^ 
In his educational treatise, Emile, he presented a new type 
of manhood, and strove to show how it might be produced 
by the application of that principle of '' following nature " 
which he there illustrates in detail. In his Contrat social he 
worked out a political system based on the sovereignty of the 
people, and in that '* fundamental book " of the Revolution 
(as I^amartine called it) provided his contemporaries with a 
manual and a programme. And here, if nowhere else in the 
later eighteenth century, we have to reckon not only with 
the general but also with the specific effect of literature upon 
life. Rousseau did not desire the Revolution, though he 
foresaw it ; ^ he would himself have been shocked by the 
course that it pursued ; yet it cannot be questioned that he 
did much to bring it about. Throughout the entire Revolu- 
tionary period, as I have elsewhere said, '' veneration for his 
memory was almost unbounded, and he was popularly idolized 
as the typical friend of virtue and liberty — the writer who 
beyond all others had shown himself the enemy of tyrants 
and the advocate of the people. The result was the develop- 
ment of a regular Rousseau cult. His portrait was con- 
spicuous in public exhibitions ; statues were erected to him ; 
a street in Paris in which he had lived for eight years was 
rechristened by his name ; on the 20th Vendemiaire, An III, 
a splendid fete was held in his honour, and the remains of 
* the man of virtue and of truth ' were borne in triumph to 
the Pantheon. And while he thus entered everywhere into 
the imagination of the Revolution, he directly and profoundly 
influenced those who were mainly responsible for its destinies. 

^ The quotation is from my own Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and 
Thought, p. 231. 

2 See the prophetic passage, " We are approaching a crisis and a period of 
revolutions," etc., in ^mile, lyivre III. 

483 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

He himself had taken pains to quahfy his doctrine of the 
omnipotence of the sovereign people. His disciples took the 
doctrine, stripped it of the qualifications, and made it the 
corner-stone of their paper constitutions. As early as 1788 
. . . Mallet du Pan heard Marat reading and commenting 
upon the Contrat social in a public promenade, amid the 
applause of an enthusiastic audience, and he adds to his 
record of the incident that he would find difficulty in mention- 
ing a single Revolutionist ' who was not transported by these 
anarchistic theories and did not burn with desire to realize 
them.' Robespierre in particular took Rousseau as his guide 
in politics, and deliberately fashioned his style upon the 
Nouvelle Helo'ise, which he always kept on a table beside him. 
The debates in the Assemblies are full of references to and 
echoes from the master's writings. His doctrines furnished 
the basis for the Jacobins' effort to reconstruct society ; and 
the ground-plan of both those great features of their programme 
— ^the scheme of State religion and that of public education — • 
is to be found in Emile." ^ 

We must not, however, take further space for the considera- 
tion of the preliminaries of the Revolution. Incomplete as 
it has necessarily been, this inquiry should serve its purpose 
as a general introduction to the events of those few momentous 
years upon the narrative of which we are now prepared to 
enter. 

1 Op, cit., pp. 248-250. 



484 



CHAPTER II 

THE STATES-GENERAL AND THE 
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 

May i789-Skpte;mbkr 1791 



■^HB convocation of the States-General determined, a 
problem of great importance at once arose. Fully 
conscious of their place in the community, the Third 
Estate demanded that as they immensely outnumbered the 
other two orders they should have at least double the number 
of representatives, and that, moreover, the three orders should 
vote together, since unless this were done their numerical 
superiority would count for nothing. ^ These demands were 
resisted by the privileged classes, who saw that if they were 
granted the predominance of power would pass to the hour- 
geoisie. Vacillating as usual, the Government consulted first 
the Parliament of Paris and then an Assembly of Notables 
convened (November 1788) for the purpose, and in each case 
the advice given was, in effect, that the procedure of 1614 
should be followed. The pressure of public opinion was, how- 
ever, too great to be withstood, and the King in council issued 
a decree (December 1788) granting the request of the commons 
for double representation, but relegating the question of " vote 
par ordre ou par tete " to the consideration of the assembly 
itself. 

The Meeting of the States-General 

On May 5, 1789, the States-General met in the Salle des 
Menus Plaisirs at Versailles — a strange setting for the first 
scene of the Revolutionary drama. The King, accompanied 

^ See in particular the famous pamphlet of Abbe Si6y^s, Qu'est-ce que le 
Tiers-^tat ? in which the claims of the commons were powerfully set forth. 

485 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

by the Queen and attended by a splendid retinue of courtiers, 
opened the ceremony with a brief speech in which he invited 
the assembly to consider the general situation and expressed 
his " tender interest " in the national welfare. Barentin, the 
Keeper of the Seals, followed with vague promises of the 
equalization of taxation. Then Necker consumed two hours 
in reading a detailed but not wholly candid memoir on the 
financial condition of the country. This closed the first day's 
proceedings, which left the deputies of the Third Estate 
disappointed and ill at ease. They had expected a definite 
lead from the Government in their coming work of reform. 
One thing only had been made clear : the Government had 
no such lead to offer. 

The next day the struggle "for power began over the deferred 
question of procedure. The commons insisted that as the 
three orders formed a single assembly they should deliberate 
and vote together, and in this contention they had the support 
of S(5me of the lower clergy, men of plebeian origin whose 
sympathies were with the class to which they belonged. But 
the rest of the clergy and the nobles refused. Five weeks were 
wasted in this initial quarrel, while popular excitement was 
growing daily in Paris and the provinces and the Court party 
looked on delighted, hoping that the apparent deadlock would 
mean the humiliating collapse of the States. At lengthy 
weary of futile pourparlers, negotiations, and conferences, the 
Third Estate resolved to take matters into their own hands, 
and on June 12 they sent a final invitation to the other two 
orders to join them in the ratification of the mandates (j)ou- 
voirs), the preliminary business over which the dispute had 
arisen. Only a few of the clergy responded. Then in a 
stormy session on the night of June 16-17 the Third Estate 
decided to act independently, and forthwith organized itself 
into an Assemblee Nationale. This decisive action impressed 
the clergy, who by a narrow majority voted to unite with the 
commons. But it alarmed the Court. The King was strongly 
urged by those about him to dissolve the States. He chose 
rather to announce (with perhaps some shadowy recollection 
486 



THE STATES-GENERAL 

of the old ' beds of justice ' in his mind) that he would deliver 
his sovereign will to them in person ; but meanwhile, with 
the intention of preventing any further meeting of the in- 
subordinate deputies, the hall at Versailles was shut against 
them on the childish pretext that it must be prepared for the 
coming royal session. Such, however, was now the temper 
of the deputies that this foolish trick served only to stiffen 
their purpose. Excluded by the military from their hall, 
they transferred themselves to the old tennis-court not far 
away, and there amid scenes of tremendous enthusiasm they 
swore a solemn oath to remain in session '' until the constitu- 
tion of the kingdom be established and affirmed on solid 
foundations." It seems almost incredible that the next day 
the tennis-court was in turn closed to them, the Count of 
Artois, the younger of the King's two brothers, having suddenly 
discovered that he wanted it for a game. But the cure of 
Saint-Iyouis placed his church at their disposal, and there 
their deliberations were continued. 

At the royal session on June 23 the King, though he appeared 
'' triste et morne," took a high tone : he declared it to be his 
will that the orders should meet separately, annulled the 
resolutions of the commons, and reminded the Assembly of 
the questions which they had been called to consider. This 
done he rose and retired. The nobles, elated at their victory, 
also dispersed. But the commons remained behind in '' gloomy 
silence." Then came a dramatic moment. Henri de Dreux- 
Breze, Grand Master of the Ceremonies, reappeared on the 
scene, and, addressing himself to Bailly, as president of the 
self-constituted Assembly, reiterated his Majesty's command. 
Bailly, though pale, stood firm. But Mirabeau, stepping 
forward, boldly defied the Crown in words which were soon 
to ring through France ; ^ after which, on a motion by Mirabeau, 

1 There are various slightly differing versions of this famous allocution. 
That given by Mirabeau himself in his Leitres di, ses Commettants, runs : " Je 
ddclare que, si Ton vous a charg^ de nous faire sortir d'ici, vous devez demander 
des ordres pour employer la force, car nous ne quitterons nos places que 
par la puissance des baionnettes." The often quoted " AUez dire k votre 
maitre " appears to be unauthentic. 

487 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the Assembly decreed the inviolabiHty of all its members. 
Before this open resistance to his authority, reinforced as it 
was by the threatening growth of popular excitement in the 
capital, the King recoiled, and a few days later the clergy and 
the nobility received a royal order to combine with the 
commons. The family being now complete (as Bailly put 
it), the Assemblee Nationale, under the new title of Assemblee 
Nationale Constituante (July 9), addressed itself to the task of 
framing a Constitution. 

The Constituent Assembly 

This victory of the Third Estate was, however, bitterly 
resented at Court, and especially by the Queen and the Count 
of Artois, who urged I^ouis to take immediate steps for the 
recovery of the power which he had weakly allowed to slip 
through his fingers. As the disturbances in Paris were still 
increasing, they persuaded him to use these as an excuse to 
mass large bodies of troops, which would presently be of 
service in a movement of reaction, in the vicinity of the capital 
and Versailles, and the loyalty of the French soldiers being 
considered doubtftd, these troops were mainly Swiss and 
German mercenaries. This provocative action naturally made 
a very bad impression, and the Assembly protested, but vainly, 
against it. Then on July 11, still under pressure from the 
same ill-advisers, the King proceeded to an even more serious 
mistake — the dismissal of Necker. The Controller-General 
had done little indeed to enlist the sympathies of the reformers, 
but he was known to have held aloof from the reactionaries 
and had been conspicuous by his absence from the royal 
session, and now his disgrace, which had all the appearance 
of a blow struck at the cause of progress, made him the hero 
of the hour. News of it fell like a thunderbolt on the Assembly 
and spread like fire through the city, everywhere arousing the 
wildest excitement. On Sunday, the 12th, enormous crowds 
gathered early in the great centre of popular commotion, the 
gardens of the Palais-Royal, where they were stirred to fever- 
heat by the eloquence of a young advocate from Picardy, 
488 







''it' 



ll, 'Wf 



■..■IfiliiiiLi'iJiiyrn ■-■■•» .h'i'<j..'i.ii.i. tu 




00 

00 



h-r 
h-r 

< 

w 
w 



THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 

Camille Desmoulins, a man who could sway multitudes, though 
he had given up his profession on account of a stutter. The 
busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans (whose proclaimed 
liberalism had caught the popular fancy) were paraded through 
the streets, 'while — a more dangerous symptom of coming 
trouble — ^the shops of the armourers were broken open and 
plundered of their weapons.^ The next day general lawlessness 
prevailed, and the rabble, now swollen by vast numbers of 
roughs and criminals who then infested Paris, made a successful 
attack upon the H6tel des Invalides and seized the old guns, 
sabres, and cannon stored there. Meanwhile, hastily sum- 
moned by tocsin, the electors of the city formed themselves 
into a municipalite insurrectionnelle and established a milice 
bourgeoise, which a few days later became the Garde Nationale, 
with L,a Fayette in command. These measures, however, did 
nothing to restore order, and on the 14th the revolt culminated 
in a grand assault upon the Bastille, long regarded as the 
stronghold and symbol of tyranny, which was captured after 
some hours of fierce fighting. De I^aunay, the governor, and 
several of his officers were slain, and Flesselles, the provost 
of the merchants, who was accused of deceiving the people with 
false promises of arms, shared the same fate. Then the mob 
surged through the streets bearing the heads of their victims 
stuck on pikes, and finished the day in an orgy of triumph. 

This event filled the Court party with consternation, for 
already they perceived something of its significance. " C'est 
une grande emeute ! " exclaimed the King, when he was 
aroused from sleep to hear the news. " Non, sire,'* replied the 
news-bearer, the Duke of I^a Rochefoucauld-Iyiancourt, " c'est 
une grande revolution." Once more the King yielded. Three 
days later he entered Paris to be reconciled to his people, 
received from Bailly, its mayor, the keys of the city and the 
cocarde of the National Guard, 2 and shortly afterward gave 

1 This is tlie usual version. It has, however, been maintained that the 
gunsmiths voluntarily distributed weapons among the crowd. 

2 Composed of red and blue, the municipal colours of Paris, and white, the 
old badge of the monarchy, 

489 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

orders for the withdrawal of the foreign troops and the recall 
of Necker. 

Suppressed for the moment, rioting broke out again on the 
22nd, when Joseph-Francois Foulon, formerly Intendant of 
Paris, who, it was reported, had once declared that if the 
people were hungry they could eat hay, was hunted out of 
his hiding-place at Vitry, brought into the city, and hung on 
a lamp-iron in the Place de Gr^ve, despite the efforts of Bailly 
and lya Fayette to save him. By this time, however, not 
Paris only but the whole of France was in a state of upheaval. 
In many parts excitement took the form of a legnlsir jacquerie. 
Bands of peasants, reinforced by bandits and ruffians of 
all descriptions, and goaded to madness by the scarcity of 
food, swept about the country, setting fire to chateaux and 
mo;tiasteries, and destroying the archives which legalized the 
iniquities of the old feudal system. In many of the large 
cities also there were serious mob-risings, with which the 
authorities were impotent to cope owing to the open sympathy 
of the military with the rioters. These events staggered the 
Assembly and drove it into reckless action which proved at 
once its generous impulses and its utter want of practical 
statesmanship. In the night session of August 4-5, by a 
series of sweeping resolutions, it voted the abolition of all 
existing privileges, and thus made an end of the old order, 
the King himself, in his new rSle of ' Restaurateur de la Liberte 
francaise,' giving his assent to the destruction of the ultimate 
foundations of his own power. 

Whatever beneficial effect this promise of a new era may 
have been designed to produce on public opinion, however, 
the grim fact remained that Paris and the whole country were 
alike starving and were alike smouldering in an aimless dis- 
content which at any moment might flame out afresh. This 
discontent was further stimulated by the emigration of the 
aristocracy, which had already begun, by doubts concerning 
the real sentiments of the vacillating King, and by the common 
knowledge that he was surrounded by advisers implacably 
hostile to the popular cause. Only a few weeks later — it was 
490 



THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 

at the end of September — the regiment of Flanders was called 
to Versailles, where its arrival was made the occasion of a 
royalist demonstration on the part of the King's body-guard. 
This incident was the signal for further tumult, the popular 
anger being increased by the exhaustion of the supplies of 
bread and flour in the bakers' shops. The trouble came to a 
head on October 5, when a vast crowd of famished men and 
women, armed with guns and pikes, marched to Versailles, 
with cries of '' Du pain ! Du pain ! " and early next morning 
penetrated into the palace shouting threats against the Queen, 
who was saved only by the devotion of the royalist soldiers 
and the opportune arrival of I^a Fayette and the National 
Guard. ^ As the immediate result of this new explosion, the 
King capitulated to the representations of the Assembly that 
his presence in Paris alone would satisfy the people. He and 
his family were accordingly conducted to the Tuileries, where 
they remained, practically as hostages to the nation, while the 
Assembly, also established in Paris in a building adjacent to 
the Tuileries, proceeded to its business of reconstruction. 

That, while the old order of things could be destroyed in a 
night, the task of devising a new order to take its place proved 
long and arduous it is hardly necessary to say. No sooner 
was the actual work begun than rival schools of thought 
rose into prominence ; the Assembly was broken up into 
groups ; and the want of any organized machinery inevitably 
led to confusion and a terrible waste of time in endless debates 
over the shadowy abstractions of political theory. It would, 
however, be impossible for us here to attempt to follow the 
Constitution-makers through the tortuous course of their 
deliberations. Nor can we pause to take account of the 
personalities who emerged from the general mass, and of 
whom some were soon to pass from the public eye, while 
others were destined to achieve world-wide notoriety : the 

1 The actual origin of the events of October 5-6 is a subject of controversy, 
and many theories have been propounded in regard to them. But we cannot 
here discuss the obscure question whether the rising was merely spontaneous 
or whether it was deliberately planned, and, if so, by whom and for what 
purpose. 

491 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Abbe Maury, the Abbe de Mpntesquieu, Cazales, and Malouet, 
for example, among the royalists ; I^ally-Tollendal, Clermont- 
Tonnerre, L/a Rochefoucauld, among the liberal aristocracy ; 
the cure Gregoire and Maurice de Talleyrand, Bishop of 
Autun, among the clergy ; Honore-Gabriel Riquetti de Mira- 
beau, the one great statesman of the early Revolutionary 
period ; Robespierre, the sad-faced deputy from Arras, 
Roederer, Petion, and Barnave, of the Extreme I^eft ; and 
many others, too numerous even to mention. A very brief 
outline of the final results of the labours of the Assembly 
must suffice for present purposes. 

The Constitution of 1791 

The theoretical foundations of the Constitution were provided 
by ,the Declaration of the Rights of Man (October 2), in which 
the Rousseauite principles were laid down that " all sovereignty 
resides essentially in the nation " and that " the law is the 
expression of the general will." In accordance with these 
principles the Crown was deprived of all its former authority ; 
but the King was retained as executive head of the State, 
without initiative except in the case of peace and war, though 
with a right of veto, which, however, was only suspensive — 
that is, it was valid only through the life of two consecutive 
legislatures. On the other hand, all legislative power was 
entrusted to a Ivegislative Assembly, elected every two years 
by Primary Assemblies, which in turn were elected by Secondary 
Assemblies, composed of all active citizens ; an active citizen 
being defined as a Frenchman (born or naturalized) over 
twenty-five, who paid in direct taxes a sum equal to three 
days' wages, and who was, moreover, obliged to serve in the 
National Guard. All public offices were thrown open to all 
citizens, irrespective of class or religion, though a small 
property qualification was required. Titles of nobility were 
abolished. The liberty of the press and of religion was guaran- 
teed. The old division of France into provinces was annulled, 
and with it all local Parliaments, privileges, laws, customs, 
and peculiarities of administration, and a uniform system of 
492 



THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 

departments, eighty-three in number, was established, each 
department being subdivided into districts (later called arron- 
dissements), cantons, and communes, locally governed through- 
out by elective bodies. The judicial machinery of the country 
was completely reconstituted ; the ancient Parliaments dis- 
appeared ; a system of tribunals was devised, beginning with 
that of the Justice de la Paix in each commune and ending 
with the Cour de Cassation in Paris, the judges (by a mis- 
taken application of the democratic principle) being, with few 
exceptions, elected for short periods only. The laws were 
recast ; arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and other abuses 
were suppressed ; trial by jury was introduced in criminal 
causes. Equally radical were the changes made in the economic 
and industrial conditions of the country, for freedom of trade 
was secured by the abolition of all guilds and corporations, 
internal custom walls were swept away, and uniformity of 
weights and measures was established. With more temerity 
than wisdom the Assembly also laid violent hands on the 
Church, the whole hierarchy of which was rearranged on a 
civil and elective basis under the control of the State, while 
its property was taken over for the use and benefit of the 
nation. In regard to the finances, as the new Government 
was manifestly obliged to assume all the debts and responsi- 
bilities of the old, greater caution was necessary. Utterly 
discredited by his helplessness, Necker retired in September 
1790, having by a last effort induced the Assembly to impose 
an extraordinary income tax, the payment of which was to 
be spread over three years. But it soon became apparent 
that this would prove a failure, and the difiiculties of the 
situation were increased both by the rapid rise in expenses 
under the new administration and by the fall in the national 
income. Many of the most vexatious of the old taxes were 
abolished and a general readjustment attempted, while a small 
poll-tax and a very heavy land tax were levied ; a part of 
the property of the Church was offered for sale for public 
purposes ; and — as a desperate device intended in the 
first instance only as a means of tiding over temporary 

493 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

troubles — paper money was issued in the form known as 
as signals.'^ 

Louis and the Constitution 

In the meantime outside the Assembly the revolutionary 
tide was rising rapidly. Not only public opinion but even 
the sentiments and actions of the Assembly 'itself were largely 
swayed by the fast-increasing power of certain political 
organizations known as clubs, which met regularly in the 
capital : the Bighty-nine Club, composed of such moderate 
men as Sieyes and I^a Fayette ; the Jacobin Club, of which 
Mirabeau, I^ameth, Duport, and Barnave were for the moment 
the most prominent members ; the Cordelier Club, led by 
Danton.2 The Paris press, too, teeming with pamphlets and 
journals, was now exercising an inflammatory influence. Amid 
tnese distractions and dangers the feeble King continued to 
pose publicly as the willing ally of those who were engaged 
in deducing him to impotence, as when on July 14, 1790 — 
the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille — he swore 
allegiance to the new Constitution in the grandiose Fete de 

^ Assignats were first introduced to facilitate the disposal of the Church 
and Crown lands which had been taken over by the State, and these Mens 
nationaux, and later the confiscated property of the emigres, were the security 
behind them. The original issue of 1790 amounted to 400 millions of livres, 
but further issues soon followed, till the sum reached over 45 thousand millions. 
The result was that the value of the assignat at once began to decline, and 
as public confidence was thus destroyed its depreciation was more and more 
rapid. In June 1793 one silver franc was worth three francs in paper ; in 
August the ratio was one to six. Though the Government took the most 
drastic measures to maintain the forced currency at its face value, the inevit- 
able decline continued, till in March 1796 a 24-franc gold piece purchased 
7200 francs in assignats. Later in the same year the assignats were redeemed 
at one-thirtieth of their nominal value, and a new form of paper money, called 
mandats territoriaux , was substituted. But as these mandats in turn quickly 
depreciated, they did not save the financial situation. In 1797, having caused 
widespread ruin, the whole disastrous system of paper credit was brought 
to an end. 

2 Both the Club des Jacobins and the Club des Cordeliers derived their 
names from the ancient convents which respectively formed their places of 
meeting : that of the Jacobins being in the Rue Saint-Honor^, that of the 
Cordeliers (the strictest branch of the Franciscan Order) in the Rue de I'i^cole 
de M6decin. * 

494 





77. MiRABEAU 



78. Robespierre 





79. Danton 



80. Marat 



494 



THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 

la Federation in the Champ de Mars. Privately, however, 
with a duplicity which was one cause of his undoing, he was 
watching for every chance to escape from the toils in which 
he was entangled. 'It was for this reason that early in the 
summer of 1790 he was induced to enter into secret negotia- 
tions with Mirabeau, who alone seemed capable, if indeed any 
man was capable, of saving the monarchy. That great and 
far-sighted statesman, notwithstanding the deplorable excesses 
of his stormy life, had exerted the enormous power of his 
magnetic personality and splendid eloquence on the side of 
moderation and order. At once a lover of liberty and a 
believer in strong government, he clung tenaciously to the 
political ideas which he had imbibed in England, and fought 
hard against the extreme democrats for the maintenance of 
some of the prerogatives of the Crown and for various other 
principles — like that of a double chamber on the English 
model — which he regarded as necessary bulwarks against 
anarchy. His premature death — he was only forty-two — 
in April 179 1 meant, as he himself said, ** the ruin of the 
monarchy " ; it deprived France of the only man who was 
really capable of grappling with the situation, and I^ouis him- 
self of his one strong and sagacious adviser.^ Shortly after 
this, driven to desperation by the Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy, from which he had vainly tried to withhold his assent, 
the wretched King, under his consort's inspiration, resolved 
to seek safety in flight. This fatally foolish step was attempted 
on the evening of June 20 ; but the plans miscarried, and the 
royal fugitives, whose objective was Metz, got as far only as 
Varennes, where they were arrested, and whence, under special 
escort, they were brought back to Paris. ^ Already there were 
suspicions of intrigues between the Court and foreign Powers 
with a view to the intervention of the latter in the interests 
of the monarchy. These suspicions were now turned into 
a certainty, for lyouis had been unwise enough to leave behind 

1 It may be mentioned in passing that the King's brother, the Count of 
Provence (afterward I^ouis XVIII) also fled on the same night, but his plans 
were better laid and executed, and he reached Brussels in safety. 

49s 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

him a lengthy proclamation in which his hostility to the new 
Constitution was made perfectly clear. The extremists, led 
by the Cordeliers, at once raised a cry for his deposition, and 
on July 17 a demonstration in favour of a republic had to be 
suppressed by I^a Fayette and the National Guard. Though 
the Assembly refused to listen to this clamour, it temporarily 
assumed the executive functions of the Crown while it brought 
its labours to a close. Then on September 14 these functions 
were restored on lyouis' formal acceptance of the now com- 
pleted Constitution. On the 30th the Assembly dissolved. 



i 

• 

496 




LMontdicfier^.- 

.«riS -ET-'" .""UiH 

L :......5Qntair^b+eau , A 

P" X Pithii/iars J-a\ _ -Ti 
bn-- • :•.■■■•..■-.--■••:. =fSens- 

Orieass .„„ •A'i°'^"J 
I l«OlRPT 'Montar^is 

■^■■■■- m 



f.M 



.... Boiu^es' 
l""'i";VcHER Ulfiver? 

lEOiot ■'•; \ QV_<^ 

a dKttt-L 

kBou5S% ALLI/ER 

AAubusison Riom/;,;;--.: 
"^f dermonfF^.Th 

?il"--...--':PUY:DE'_.^-. 
Usse|..|;^5^'^^Arrib 

^auriac '•••••vr»i8rlc 

s\-'', .IVlurat 

Wen > ^ "\ ••' " ,'••'"] 
iFigeacfi;^ VUOZE;^ 

[^ -A. Rodfiz^'y'Sfei 
^ViWfr-anche--'''V^ ■Lff^ 

Lill^r^I-. S^Affrique-l-^^ 
TARN''-- ■•::;; .LDoS 

!< CastresvH Ert^ioiui 
SlIleftMehe....;; StPons f , 
u.C5Selnaudary.n . » ;« 
Hrcassomie-x.B^zieps-' 

i "■■■•• ■■• ^ . ,.Pprpign£ 

t:^i■■"!:;■■■■■PYRENEES,- 

'•-PradestoRLEsC ,__ 



A N G L E T E R R E 

-Southampton 



P 



M A N C 



H E 



CdelaH^^^ 



,etW"rL„(« 



Diepgex- 



BtuxeUes -S? 
;^K BELG-PQIje 



tw 






"•■'Roert 

MeziepES L- 



OCEAN 



1 Guernese^^ Valo^es. Cfc'^-"'iffl|„e 
P Anglo- Normandes \ S )^^^ ^ptfiiidSl 

,.A»raticSes' ■^'"rf"™", .OremSt; 
\ /Cuimiiirin yPloSfmei meflHes ,• , ..-s n b T u p,>~etiatGaudun- -■■•■■- ■,=( 

Romoraptiri; 

.c.^S^^^f^,^|,^3; Bourses 
ld'Yeu= \la Roche sTi^a. " 



,..,„.,„.v. .- . I <-,Se[lan . 

le; IBIontdicfrer', '■ JJVISN E ARDENNE^ \.^V •Ri^bour^ 






^y^^h L D ehwCa G Nl E 



„ =QG;?>^^>t>ccy*;;raSii\rEff LOIRE,'"™' 
PaimboeWV|^J^^es ;;„;„,,>-< 

I NoIrmoutierfV/'., -:';' ': ^.- 

/ '-■''■-■ '■'■: \Bressuire ^iouiiuf 

. UriMD^E VOEUXf Poitiers' 
IBS Sables d'OlonmkFontenajf^Ei'fjjg VltlviNE 

Tj n'rt^n ' •Wiorf. (t) iviontffl'driiiuiL , ""s - - 

IdeRee^yiaRocWte. *vray| Beiiac r^^'K' 'Monlli 



MarennestSaintes .■.. 



CREUSEi 

lllf 



ATLANTI QUE 



;Norai 

Lespafre- 

\l 
Bordeaux 

i-GIRONDE, 

^Xla^ebtetDT- 



: ^ -VIEMWE 

eme-; ^ ■■•.ctvrioii 

,,„-:' Nora™ ■■■.;=^ '"''"■ , "53. 



\s-S'!me; 

'Aualloii' S6mJr •"'■" 

'^'■^^^^^■^^-^-^ 
vW-Ethiteau-BeLne^-^n,, DOUBS / 

leCreusot VSaSriaJURA^/, 

ALLI/ER^ L'SiREi;- Mlaude ,.„^, _- 

"■- ■< 1 **4cpn^BourJ.Na«fiii'''^-^' 



"l«(inijj^li.3fi)''ft"fiir' 
■■jc9-Daim;e 

S U I s 



v=i" 




de 



LA FRANCE 

PAR 

DEPARTEMENTS 




fViliefrancfieA I ft ■ 
;.. . ~suou=au.. ".v,.>, . , RHONtiTrerauif , , 
s^Boutjaneiif aermontpi -Thiers \ ■■■.. L--._A. - . 

■^-■- -V.ESa~^V...)PU^DkMMferf la^MnN „„.,„.., ^, 

l™™^-- ^;-.<:tv,;.i. usselt '^"""^aAmbert .StEtisnne?'Vie""H CliJmDay'MouliW ■■ 

-■^-'mv^,»i/,„ ^ ^^' "'■• •' ■■ V^Privaa/ Die. .. - HAUTES- J 
-■^""^ic^Li VLOZEREiARDECftEfDROME/- -ALPES -• 



JVIa, 



Go/fe 
Cascogne 



RodEz*~^~r''S^e';*l?'|"8'^/; . : .Nyon 

dfangi? 



a?as. '^rS^iiSlCv^ Cah'ors.... . ^ . ^ 

IMit-de-MarsIm ^LeS'.'^Gs.ilSr^' ■ S- Affnque 
s^sj;S%^ E R/S -i^A^^^T^R ~ ■■■ •■., .iMonpto- 
iOrfei'^^'^io.S^X^f^t^'H ERh Jlt; 
BSSES.- „fPau;n;;^i;i,-GARONNEpijte5?J;i4S'aCy!>o,T<.JyCette 



Mont^limar : Gafl.„.^- 



■liSiSterohi 



•Sarcelonnatte 




" ■-'. ■ GA R.b >^-.'^«?i,'"^^sps-*Ai.p|S'-Ai.PESi:; ■ 

. Trl tX iAvi^on /orcaiauiaf^ .Puji* Thiinie 

leViJan Nimea ^.(^1 -Apt .Casieilihiil -MMITIMESjjj,^ 



;;!ferbt 

/-PYRENEES ^rtJIES^ 



'SGaui 



lurelf .WletocjiE..-;: SJPnm. 

OenS Pamsrs /i"^^ -MS. 



^,>£> 



'ParrJers j'*^^^ iNarbonne 
reipignan 

'■"-■, n J PYREWEES- 



MarsemgC 
6o/fe du Lion 



"I'fHyirt 



/W£/? ME D ITE R RANEE 



CHAPTER III 

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

OCI'OBKR 179I-SKPTKMBKR 1792 

" ^^ IRE," said the president, addressing the King in the 
^^ last session of the Constituent Assembly, ''your 
. ^^ Majesty has ended the Revolution." Those who 
applauded these words were sanguine enough to believe that 
the national crisis was now over and the peace and welfare 
of the country assured. Yet the Constitution of 179 1, which 
was regarded as the foundation of a new and permanent order, 
was destined to last for less than a year and to disappear in 
a welter of anarchy. 

By a quixotic and singularly ill-advised act of self-denial 
the Constituent Assembly had resolved that none of its mem- 
bers should be eligible for a seat in the first lyCgislature. The 
deputies who thus voted themselves out of power were actuated 
by various motives, in some cases good, in others bad ; but, 
whatever their intentions, the result was most unfortunate. 
There were a few at least among them who had learned some- 
thing of the business of politics from practical experience and 
whose influence might therefore have been of advantage in 
the next council of the nation. As it was, the lyCgislative 
Assembly which met on October i, 1791, was composed of 
new men, many young, all untried, and nearly all without 
even an elementary knowledge of public aifairs. 

Composition of the Legislative Assembly 

In this unstable combination of unpromising elements the 
party lines were soon defined. The Right was occupied by 
the Feuillants (so called from the club at which they held 

2 1 497 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

their meetings), of whom the most important were General 
Mathieu Dumas, Girardin (who boasted of his former friend- 
ship with '' the virtuous Rousseau "), and Theodore de I^ameth, 
and who honestly desired the maintenance of the throne and 
the consolidation of the new order. Outside the Assembly 
these " constitutional royalists " had the strong support of 
men like I/a Fayette and Barnave, but as , a parliamentary 
party they lacked organization, leadership, and programme. 
Opposed to them on the lycft was a more compact group which 
gradually formed about certain deputies from the department 
of the Gironde — ^the great orator Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, 
Grangeneuve, Ducos ; this group hence came to be designated 
the Girondins, though at first they were known as Brissotins, 
from the Quaker-like humanitarian Jean-Pierre Brissot, who 
wa^s soon recognized as their chief. Among other prominent 
members of the party were Petion, Mayor of Paris, the Marseil- 
lais Barbaroux, Isnard, lyouvet (of dubious fame in literature 
as the author of Le Chevalier de Faublas), and the celebrated 
philosopher Condorcet. With an ardent love of their country 
and a passion for liberty nourished on classical antiquity and 
the heroic pages of Plutarch, these men were moderate re- 
publicans whose antagonism to the monarchy, while in part 
bred of their profound distrust of the Court, had its root, like 
all their political sentiments, in theoretical principle. Essen- 
tially visionaries and idealists, they lived in a Utopian world 
of noble but fantastic abstractions, and while they had plenty 
of character and ability, they possessed none of the qualities 
requisite for practical statesmanship. Yet their high-pitched 
enthusiasm and fervid rhetoric greatly impressed the neutral 
Centre of the Assembly and gave them a predominant power 
in debate. Just above them, on the Extreme I^eft, in an 
elevated position which later (February 1792) came to be 
called ' la Montague,' sat a handful of deputies — the chief 
among them being the ex-Capuchin Chabot, Basire, and Merlin 
de Thionville — ^who were the representatives in the Assembly 
of the uncompromising republicanism of the Cordelier and 
Jacobin Clubs outside. Numerically weak, they soon made 
498 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

themselves conspicuous by the violence alike of their opinions 
and of their language. At the outset these extremists, who 
formed the nucleus of what was soon to be the Jacobin party, 
gave a general support to the Brissotins, but the rapid course 
of events soon led them to take an independent line. 

The Work of the Legislative Assembly 

The Legislative Assembly was faced by many and grave 
difficulties. There was serious trouble with the non-jurant 
priests (pretres insermentes) , who, strengthened by the Pope's 
condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, were 
stirring up discontent among the orthodox Catholics through- 
out the country. The emigration of the aristocracy had been 
going on rapidly, and large numbers of nobles were now 
gathered at Brussels, Coblenz, M^^inz, Treves, and other 
places on or near the frontier, where they were busy intriguing 
for a foreign invasion of France which, as they fondly hoped, 
would restore them to their former rights. Though their 
haughty behaviour and characteristic indifference to every- 
thing save their own interests made them unpopular in the 
Court circles in which they had found hospitality, their per- 
petual agitations were naturally regarded as a source of danger 
at home. Moreover, even apart from any question of their 
influence, the foreign situation was menacing. The Revolu- 
tion, though at first treated with contempt as a mere flash 
in the pan, began to arouse something like consternation 
among the crowned heads and diplomatists of Kurope as its 
real importance came to be appreciated. After the fiasco of 
lyouis' attempted flight the King of Prussia and the Kmperor 
lyeopold (Marie-Antoinette's brother) had in the Declaration 
of Pillnitz (August 27, 1791) formally announced that the 
position of the King of France was a matter of common concern 
to all the sovereigns of Kurope, and that if necessary they 
would not hesitate to interfere in his behalf. His acceptance 
of the Constitution, it is true, had for the moment deprived 
them of all pretext for action, but the menace of invasion 
remained, and the tension was increased by the widespread 

499 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

belief that if not the King himself, at any rate ]M,arie- Antoinette 
and her party at Court — ^the ' Austrian Committee ' as it was 
called — were secretly conspiring with foreign potentates against 
the hard-won liberties of the French people. 

In these circumstances the Assembly proceeded at once to 
measures the severity of which was held to be justified by the 
perilous condition of the country. The recalcitrant clergy 
were required to take the oath of allegiance, failing which they 
were to be expelled from their livings ; the King's brother 
(the Count of Provence) and the emigrant nobles were sum- 
moned to return to France before a given date under pain 
otherwise of death and the confiscation of their property. 
Except in regard to his brother, however, the King, exercising 
his power of suspensive veto, refused to sanction these decrees, 
and in the crisis which was caused by his unexpected action 
he would certainly have had the support of the constitutional 
party had not renewed strain in the relations of France and 
Austria over the question of the emigres given their opponents 
an advantage which they were quick to seize. For several 
reasons the Girondins had fixed their minds on war : they 
were, to begin with, convinced that the sovereigns of Kurope, 
with the connivance of the Court, were combining together 
to crush the popular cause ; they believed that a European 
conflict would place I^ouis in a position of hopeless embarrass- 
ment and thus favour the success of republican ideas at home ; 
while at the same time they cherished the characteristically 
chimerical dream that it would spread these ideas among the 
enslaved peoples of other lands and make the ** tyrants " of 
the world *' tremble on their thrones of clay." In their demand 
for war they were joined by I^a Fayette and a few of the con- 
stitutionalists, who, looking at the matter from the diametri- 
cally opposed point of view, satisfied themselves that war 
would in fact help to restore the prestige of the Crown, for 
which very reason the Jacobins, on the other hand, declared 
strongly against it. This was the first serious disagreement 
between the moderate Republicans and their advanced allies, 
and it quickly developed into the fiercest antagonism. The 
500 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

popularity of the idea of war in the country at large, however, 
gave additional driving power to the eloquence of the Girondins 
in the Assembly, and before long they were strong enough to 
force the King to dismiss his pacifist Feuillant ministers and 
to replace them with adherents of their own. Of this new 
ministry the most important members were Charles-Fran9ois 
Dumouriez, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and 
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiere, who was in charge of the 
Interior.^ The former, who had served with distinction in 
the Seven Years' War, was more of a soldier than a statesman. 
The latter, an ex-Constituent, was the very embodiment of 
integrity and honour, but narrow, pedantic, conceited, and 
unsympathetic. His own personality was, however, entirely 
overshadowed by that of his much younger wife, a woman 
of striking beauty and charm, whose salon was the chief centre 
of the Girondin party, and who exercised an enormous influence 
in their councils. Ardent, impulsive, enthusiastic, of noble spirit 
but unbalanced mind, and a curious blend of Spartan austerity 
and romantic sentimentalism, of the temper of Plutarch and 
of Rousseau, Mme Roland was a characteristic type of the 
peculiar idealism which she did so much to inspire. 

The War with Austria and the Overthrow 
OF the Monarchy 

The purpose of the Girondins was soon achieved. Dumouriez* 
curt demand that Austria should cease mobilizing troops on 
the French frontier was met by an unsatisfactory reply from 
the new Emperor, Francis II, who had just succeeded his 
father, and on April 20, 1792, war against Austria was declared. 

The French plan was to conduct a defensive campaign on 
the natural frontiers and to take the offensive in the Nether- 
lands. Hostilities opened, however, with a series of reverses 
which, though really due to the rawness of the soldiers and 
the inexperience of their leaders, were at once attributed to 

1 It must be remembered that, according to the new Constitution, no 
member of the I/egislature was eligible for a place in the Government, and 
that the ministry was thus composed of outsiders. 

501 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

treason ; the clubs and journals were loud in their accusations 
against the Court ; Marat, in his Ami du Peuple, voiced the 
violent animus of the lowest classes by demanding " five or 
six hundred heads to assure the repose and happiness of 
France." Petion, as Mayor of Paris, had already armed the 
populace against any emergency, and the peace of the city 
was seriously threatened by the bands of sans-cidottes who 
swarmed in the streets. All this clamour alarmed the Assembly, 
which in order to deprive the King of his military support 
disbanded his guard, at the same time resolving to create at 
Soissons a camp of 20,000 federal soldiers, drawn from all the 
cantons, which was to protect the Legislature against any 
possible enemies within the gates. ^ The King, though he 
consented to the removal of his guard, vetoed both the forma- 
tion of a camp and the deportation of the non-jurant clergy 
which had also been decreed, and, irritated by an impertinent 
lette;: of protest addressed to him by Roland (though in fact 
written by Mme Roland), dismissed his Girondin ministers and 
filled their places with friends of La Fayette. These events 
again inflamed the passions of the populace, and on June 20 — 
the anniversary of the ' tennis-court oath ' — some 20,000 armed 
men and women, mainly from the suburbs of Saint-Antoine 
and Saint-Marceau, having first invaded and terrorized the 
Assembly, marched on to the Tuileries, the doors of which 
they were proceeding to break down with hatchets when the 
King himself appeared, calm and collected, before the shouting 
and gesticulating rabble. A butcher named Legendre there- 
upon read to him a petition demanding the sanction of the 
decrees. Louis replied with dignity that that was neither the 
time nor the place for him to consider such a request, and that 
he would act in strict accordance with the Constitution ; but 
he placed on his head the bonnet rouge which was the badge 
of the Commune and drank a glass of wine to the health of 

^ During their inarch across France and into Paris the federes from Mar- 
seille sang the famous Hymne db I'Armee du Rhin, which from this circum- 
stance came to be known, as it always will be known, as the Marseillaise, 
though it was actually composed a few weeks before at Strassburg by a young 
officer of the engineers, Rouget de I^isle. 
502 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

the people. At the end of two hours Petion arrived on the 
scene and the demonstration closed. During the whole of 
that critical time Mme Elisabeth, the King's sister, shared his 
danger with equal coolness and courage, while Marie-Antoi- 
nette, with her children, remained in concealment under the 
protection of a few devoted adherents, and was thus saved 
from the fury of the women, whose insults and threats were 
specially directed against her. 

This riot, for which neither the Girondins nor the Jacobin 
chiefs were responsible, created a slight rally in the King's 
favour among the bourgeoisie, who warmly approved of I^a 
Fayette's action in demanding the punishment of the ring- 
leaders. But public attention was now distracted by foreign 
affairs. For meanwhile the reverses of the French arms con- 
tinued ; Austria had been joined by Prussia and Sardinia ; 
and on July 25 the Duke of Brunswick, as commander of the 
main army of invasion, issued a violent manifesto in which 
he announced that the object of the allies was nothing less 
than the suppression of anarchy in France and the restoration 
of the ancient monarchy. This impolitic proclamation caused 
the deepest indignation throughout the country, which was 
everywhere stirred to the highest pitch of martial fervour. 
Already the Assembly had solemnly declared the country 
in danger (July 11) and had called for volunteers, and 
large numbers now responded to the appeal. This patriotic 
enthusiasm was, however, accompanied in the capital by a 
tremendous outburst of anger against the King, whose secret 
understanding with Austria was held to be beyond dispute, 
and who was accordingly execrated as the worst of the nation's 
enemies. This gave the insurrectionary sections the oppor- 
tunity for which they had been waiting, and a carefully 
prepared rising was the result. On August 9 and 10 an armed 
crowd from the faubourgs took possession of the Hotel de 
Ville, where they murdered Mandat, the commander of the 
National Guard, and early the next morning an attack was 
made on the Tuileries, the Swiss guard of which was cut to 
pieces. The King and his family sought refuge in the Assembly, 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

but the Assembly was impotent to protect them. Even its 
proposal to lodge them in the I^uxembourg was rejected by 
the Commune, which insisted that they should remain in its 
own hands, and imprisoned them in the tower of the Temple. 
Bowing before the storm, the 284 deputies who were brave 
enough to keep their places decreed the suspension of the 
King, the convocation of a National Convention to settle the 
problems which this step entailed, and in the meantime the 
appointment of a council to perform the functions of the royal 
executive. 

The overthrow of the monarchy was at the same time the 
defeat of the Assembly, and both had been brought about by 
the Commune of Paris, which had emerged triumphant in the 
struggle. Roland and his colleagues returned to office, but 
the real victor for the moment was a young lawyer of Arcis- 
sur-Aube, who had been practising in Paris when the Revolu- 
tion began, had rapidly risen into prominence as an agitator 
agaiflst the party of lya Fayette, and now entered the Executive 
Council as Minister of Justice. A man of really great parts, 
a genuine patriot and lover of liberty, Georges- Jacques Danton 
was mainly instrumental in rousing the national spirit in that 
hour of imminent danger from foreign foes, and the value of 
the work which he thus accomplished must never be forgotten. 
Unfortunately, however, he did not hesitate at violence ; he 
had no scruples about means when a given object was to be 
attained ; and thus he was ready to condone, though he did 
not directly inspire, the terrible events which immediately 
followed the collapse of the throne. 

But though lyouis was now powerless in the hands of the 
Commune, the country's perils increased. La Fayette, having 
vainly endeavoured to induce his soldiers to march to the 
King's rescue, abandoned his army and fled across the fron- 
tier. His desertion weakened the French forces ; the allies 
advanced rapidly ; and when the news came that first Ivongwy 
(August 23) and then Verdun (September 27) had been captured 
by the Austrians, who had thus opened the way to Paris 
itself, the city was seized with panic. Then followed the 
504 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

most hideous scene of the early Revolutionary drama, when 
bands of assassins, hired by the Commune, invaded the prisons, 
at that time crowded with supposed royalist sympathizers, 
and for five days and nights systematically butchered their 
inmates (September 2-7). For the most part the women were 
spared, but among those who perished was the beautiful 
Mme de lyamballe, who gave her life for her allegiance to her 
friend the Queen, and whose head, carried through the streets 
on a pike, was exhibited to Marie- Antoinette before a window 
in the Temple. 

While, however, the last days of the now quite helpless 
Assembly were stained by the excesses of this first portent 
of the later Terror, Dumouriez' success in throwing back the 
Austrians at Valmy showed that the tide of war was now taking 
a turn in favour of France. This notable victory was won 
on September 20. The next day the I^egislative Assembly 
gave place to the National Convention, which meanwhile had 
been elected by universal suffrage. 



505 



CHAPTER IV 

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

Septkmber 1792-OcToBKR 1795 

IN its first session the National Convention made absolute 
the Assembly's provisional decree of deposition against 
the King and formally proclaimed the abolition of 
royalty in France. Then, pending the establishment of the 
new machinery of the Republic, to devise which a special 
coilimittee was appointed, it assumed all the functions and 
responsibilities of government. 

» 
The Girondins and the Jacobins 

Within and without the situation was critical. The country 
was in a state of commotion. Many important administrative 
questions had to be settled. A fresh constitution had to be 
prepared. At the same time there was a great war to be 
carried on against a league of powerful enemies by whom the 
very existence of the nation was imperilled. Yet of the 782 
deputies of whom the new assembly was composed, and of 
whom about one-third had already sat in one or other of the 
preceding bodies, the vast majority, forming the Centre, or 
' Plaine,* approached their gigantic task with no definite views 
and no plan of action. For the time being, therefore, these 
uncertain and ill-prepared legislators — ^these crapauds du 
marais, as they were contemptuously called — counted little 
except through their votes. But in the meanwhile the dis- 
sensions which already separated the two sections of the 
former lycft — now sharply distinguished as Girondins and 
Jacobins — had developed into a fierce hostility, and for the 
first nine months of its existence the Convention was the scene 
506 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

of violent contentions, which culminated in a life-and-death 
struggle between them. Their rivalry was at bottom perhaps 
a matter less of specific principles than of temper and person- 
alities. Yet their differences at certain points were clearly- 
marked. The Girondins, who now occupied the Right, though 
they clung to their vague abstractions and formulas, were 
on the whole anxious to temporize, and as the advocates of 
moderation they were for the moment the main hope of the 
middle classes throughout the country, who desired to uphold 
property and order. The Jacobins, or Party of the Mpuntain, 
on the other hand, were radicals of the most uncompromising 
kind who did not scruple to push theory to the last extreme 
in practice and frankly appealed to the passions of the Parisian 
mob. The two parties thus represented two successive waves 
in the revolutionary movement. The Third Estate had been 
the chief gainers from the events of '89 onward ; the Constitu- 
tion of 1791 had been wholly in their favour, and they would 
now have been well satisfied to leave things as they were. 
Not so the lower classes, who, though relieved, indeed, from 
the crushing burdens of the Old Regime, had otherwise profited 
far less than they had expected from the past two years of 
change. The original middle-class party — ^the party formerly 
led by men like La Fayette, Bailly, Barnave, and the Lameths — 
had now merged in the amorphous and impotent Plaine. But 
its place was to some extent taken by the Girondins, who, 
despite their anti-monarchical and anti-clerical doctrines, tried 
in their turn to arrest the forces of destruction, while on their 
side the Jacobins proclaimed the necessity of a further extension 
of the Revolution in the interests of the proletariat, whose 
cause they had made their own. On another closely connected 
issue too they were hopelessly divided. The Girondins, deriv- 
ing their support from the provinces, stood for the independence 
of the Convention and the rights of the departments against 
the domination of the Commune of Paris. The Jacobins, who 
depended upon the Commune, advocated a strongly centralized 
government and the supremacy of the capital in the State. 
However much they might differ among themselves on 

S07 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

particular points, and however fluctuating might be their 
poHcy, the Girondins, who included most of the Brissotins of 
the Assembly, were fairly homogeneous in character and 
sentiments. The Jacobins, on the contrary, were a motley 
crowd whose disparate elements were temporarily held together 
only by a common hatred of their rivals and a common passion 
for power. Three outstanding personalities, each of whom 
had his special followers and satellites, exercised at the outset 
a dominating though divided influence over them : Danton, 
** the Mirabeau of the sans-culottes," a tower of strength in the 
hour of peril and the very incarnation of the audacity which 
he preached ; the " incorruptible " Robespierre, narrow- 
minded, ambitious, relentless, intense, the dupe of his own 
phrases, cold-bloodedly cruel, as events were soon to prove, 
yet with all his priggishness and conceit absolutely sincere ; 
and the gloomy demagogue Marat, whose overheated imagina- 
tion saw plots and traitors everywhere, and whose diatribes 
in his Ami du Peuple were hardly distinguishable from the 
ravings of homicidal mania. Among other members of the 
Mountain already or soon to be conspicuous it will suffice to 
mention Camille Desmoulins, Danton's devoted admirer and 
friend ; Saint-Just and Couthon, both, like their leader Robes- 
pierre, fanatical idealists of the school of Rousseau ; the 
bloodthirsty Billaud-Varennes ; the infamous Collot-d'Herbois ; 
the eccentric Anacharsis Cloots, *' orator of the human race," 
who even at that time of windy rhetoric contrived to attract 
attention by .his amazing loquacity ; Fabre d'Eglantine, the 
poet ; David, the painter ; and Philippe, Duke of Orleans, 
presently to be known as Philippe-;6galite. 

The Trial and Death of the King 

As soon as the Convention settled down to business the 
struggle of the parties began with the demand of the Gironde 
for the punishment of the assassins in the recent massacres, 
for the arraignment of Robespierre and Marat on a charge of 
aiming at a dictatorship, and for the formation of a strong 
guard to protect the Convention against the Commune. The 
So8 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

Jacobins retaliated by counter-accusations against the Gironde 
of desiring to establish a federal republic whereby the depart- 
ments would be brought into conflict with the capital and 
the unity of_the nation destroyed. Over these matters weeks 
were consumed in unseemly wrangles and recriminations. At 
length, early in November, the committee appointed to inves- 
tigate the conduct of the fallen King presented its report ; 
the Mountain forced on the Convention the consideration of 
his fate ; and after much discussion the argument of Robes- 
pierre and Saint-Just that he should be put to death without 
process of law was rejected, and it was decreed that he should 
be tried by the Convention itself as the representative of the 
French people. Accordingly, on December ii, lyouis Capet, 
as he was now called, was brought to the bar of the Assembly 
and impeached for conspiracy against public liberty and national 
safety, his defence being entrusted to the veteran Malesherbes, 
Tronchet, formerly a distinguished member of the Parliament 
of Paris, and a young and eloquent advocate from Bordeaux 
named Des^ze. On December 26 the trial was concluded, but 
it was not till January 7, 1793, that the voting commenced, 
in the presence of disorderly crowds who packed the galleries 
and overawed and intimidated the deputies with their clamour 
and threats. On the initial question of lyouis' guilt the Con- 
vention was unanimous ; the proposal that its judgment should 
be submitted to the ratification of the people was rejected by 
424 votes against 283 ; by the narrow majority of 53 the 
death penalty was decreed ; again by a narrow majority, this 
time of 70, it was resolved that no respite should be given. 
All through the debates on these questions the essential weak- 
ness of the Girondins was conspicuous. They had joined in 
declaring lyouis' guilt ; their leaders had voted for his death ; 
but they had done their utmost to save him from the scaffold 
by endeavouring to secure a referendum ; and their attempt 
to obtain a delay in the execution of the sentence was a last 
desperate effort on their part to escape from the logical con- 
sequences of their own action. 

The final step in these protracted proceedings was taken 

509 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

on January 19. On the 21st the sentence was duly carried 
out in what had till recently been the Place I^ouis XV and was 
now the Place de la Revolution. The deposed monarch had 
borne the hardships of imprisonment with pious resignation, 
and during his trial had compoiled himself with simple dignity. 
Nor did his courage fail him at the supreme moment. Stepping 
to the front of the scaffold, he began a speech to the people 
protesting his innocence, but his voice, though strong and 
firm, was drowned in the rolling of drums, and a few moments 
later his head fell beneath the knife of the guillotine. 

The execution of lyouis created a profound sensation through- 
out Europe, and greatly increased the dangers of the Republic 
by multiplying and uniting. its foreign foes. The defeat of 
the Austrians in the last days of the Assembly had been 
followed by striking successes on the Rhine, in Savoy, and in 
Nice, and Dumouriez' victory at Jemappes (November 6, 1792) 
had placed Belgium in the power of the French. But this 
triumphant progress was checked when early in 1793 Kngland, 
Holland, Spain, and the Germanic Confederation joined Austria 
and Prussia in a coalition, and at once assumed the offensive. 
In February and March a series of reverses overtook the 
French arms ; the invasion of Holland was abandoned ; and 
Dumouriez' defeat at Neerwinden (March 18) entailed the 
loss of Belgium. That able but adventurous general had 
saved the country in a moment of special danger ; but he 
was known to be dissatisfied with the course which things 
were taking in the Convention ; the latter, aware of his royalist 
leanings, despatched commissioners to arrest him in camp ; 
and, like lya Fayette before him, he deserted his army and 
sought refuge with the enemy. The menace of foreign invasion 
thus reappeared. At the same time there were serious troubles 
at home. The provinces were disaffected, and in the west, 
where Catholic and monarchical feelings were strong, reaction 
against the new order manifested itself in the beginnings of 
an insurrection in Vendee, soon to develop into civil war. 



510 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

Organization of the Revolutionary Government 

While these events were in progress Danton made an heroic 
attempt to reconcile the contending factions in the Convention 
in the interests of unity, but their quarrels continued to 
increase in bitterness, and as the Jacobins gained ground the 
position of the Girondins became more and more critical. It 
was now indeed war to the knife between them and the Com- 
mune of Paris, for while they denounced the disorders of the 
populace, the populace replied with demonstrations against 
them and clamour for their expulsion. In the meantime, 
dominated by the Mountain, the Convention quickly organized 
the machinery of the Revolutionary Government, and in so 
doing created the formidable instruments of despotism which 
were to become so famous a little later in the Reign of Terror. 
A Revolutionary Tribunal was established, endowed with 
extraordinary powers for the summary treatment of " traitors, 
conspirators, and anti-revolutionists." A central Committee 
of General Security (Surete Generale) was charged with the 
task of hunting out political crime and sending suspected 
persons before the Tribunal, while similar bodies were organized 
in all the communes of the country. The full authority of 
the executive was vested in another committee — that of Public 
Safety (Salut Public) — which stood outside of and above the 
law and exercised absolute control over all departments of 
administration ; while members of the Convention, armed 
with dictatorial powers, were sent out " on mission," some to 
superintend the operations of the armies in the field, others 
to carry out the orders of the Government in the provinces. 
Knergetic action was also taken for the prosecution of the 
war ; a further issue of two milliards of assignats was decreed, 
and an order was made for a fresh levy of 300,000 men, to be 
raised, voluntary recruits failing, by conscription. 

Fall of the Girondins 

Immensely strengthened by these measures, the Jacobins 
pressed their attacks upon the Girondins with renewed vigour. 



HISTORY OP FRANCE 

Robespierre accused them of complicity with Dumouriez. As 
a counter-move they made a second attempt to crush M^rat, 
whom they succeeded in sending to the Revolutionary Tribunal ; 
but the charge against him was dismissed and his acquittal 
was followed by a tremendous outburst of popular enthusiasm. 
Amid all this excitement many social and economic questions 
were forced upon the Convention by the scarcity of food and 
the sufferings of the poor, and much time was spent in debates 
about capital and property which in the main had little result, 
though severe laws were enacted against those who trafficked 
in the currency, and a maximum was established to regulate 
the price of provisions according to a sliding scale (May 3). 
These conditions and events still further inflamed the passions 
of the mob against the Girondins, whose leaders had opposed 
the^ demands of the Commune for exceptional legislation. As 
the weeks went by the agitation in the capital grew apace ; 
Marat in L'Ami du Peuple continued to rave for the blood of 
the *' anti-patriots" ; and even he was now outdone in violence 
by the editor of Le Pere Duchesne, the atrocious and con- 
temptible Hebert, whose ribaldry and obscenity made him the 
idol of the lowest elements in the rabble. Threatened risings 
in the south and west in favour of the Girondins did little to 
check the fury of the metropolis against them, and their futile 
endeavour to silence Hebert brought the fast-gathering storm 
to a head. At the end of May the sections of the city formed 
themselves into a municipalite insurredionnelle, and the Con- 
vention was invaded by 30,000 armed men, against whom it 
vainly tried to preserve at least the fiction of independence. 
For three days it remained in a state of siege ; an attempt 
made by its members to escape was frustrated by Hanriot, 
the drunken but resolute commander of the National Guard, 
and Marat with a hundred patriots conducted them back to 
their hall. On June 2 the Mountain triumphed, and the arrest 
of the twenty-two leaders of the Gironde was decreed. 

This was the signal for many serious outbreaks in the 
provinces ; I^yon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulon, Grenoble, 
Caen, and other important cities became centres of anti- 
512 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

Jacobin risings ; the royalist reaction made rapid progress 
in Vendee, where the insurgents, under their heroic peasant 
chief CatheHneau, swept everything before them. At the 
same time the alHes scored some notable successes on the 
northern and eastern frontiers ; Metz, Valenciennes, and Conde 
were captured ; the ports of France were blockaded by the 
English fleet. Already one of the great figures of the Mpuntain 
had disappeared — ^Marat, assassinated (July 13) by the young 
avenger Charlotte Corday, who had travelled from Caen on 
her self-appointed mission and cheerfully paid the price of 
her deed on the scaffold. For the moment D ant on and 
Robespierre were rivals for power ; but though Danton worked 
-hard to save the nation and did lion's service in its cause, the 
movement of events was entirely in favour of Robespierre. 

Confronted by these many perils, the Convention rose to the 
occasion with promptitude and unflinching courage, and before 
long the situation was completely changed. The revolts in 
the provinces were suppressed. The Vendeans, whose onward 
rush had brought them to the walls of Nantes, were thrown 
back in disorder, though it was not till the end of the year 
that they were decisively beaten by Kleber and Marceau. 
Fresh levies were raised and new generals appointed for the 
foreign campaigns ; apathy and misunderstandings weakened 
the coalition ; the tide turned again, and by the autumn all 
danger of invasion was once more averted. Whatever judg- 
ment we may otherwise pass upon the members of the Revolu- 
tionary Government, their splendid and successful defence of 
the country in that dark hour of imminent disaster must always 
be remembered to their credit. 

The Reign of Terror 

Unfortunately, however, there was another side to their 
activity. To conciliate public opinion a new Constitution, 
delegating unlimited authority to the sovereign people, was 
hurriedly prepared, but when deputations waited upon the 
Convention with demands that it should at once be put in 
force the reply was that the provisional machinery of govern- 

2K 513 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

ment must continue till the end of the war. Thus, while 
extreme democrac^^ was admitted on paper, an autocratic 
bureaucracy^ was maintained in practice. The Committee of 
Public Safety, now reconstituted, with Danton left out, and 
withCouthon, Saint-Just, Robespierre, andver\" shortty Collot- 
d'Herbois and Billaud-Varennes among its members, remained 
in absolute control of affairs and proceeded to carr}^ out the 
polic}^ which has made it infamous in the annals of despotism. 
On September 17 the notorious Loi des Suspects was enacted, 
under the terms of which ' suspected persons ' were so defined 
as to include all who even in the most negative way could be 
deemed hostile to, or even lukewarm in their attitude toward, 
the Republic, liberty, and ' civism.' With this the Reign of 
Terror, which realty dates from the formation of the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety, began in earnest. The law itself was 
sweeping enough, but in practice it was stretched even be3^ond 
its nominal intention. Paris, and indeed the whole of France, 
was thrown into a fever of suspicion ; no one was safe ; men 
and women were arrested and imprisoned without cause or 
motive ; the Revolutionary^ Tribunal, now enlarged and vested 
with increased powers, worked with frenzied activity to 
' purify ' the cotmtry ; the guillotine was in daily use. The 
first important victim of the new system was Marie- Antoinette, 
who on October 16 met her fate with a noble dignity which 
goes far to bUnd us to her many and grievous faults. On the 
31st the twenty-one members of the Gironde proscribed in 
June went to the scaffold singing the Marseillaise.^ Philippe- 
E^galite followed on November 6 ; Mme Roland on the 8th ; 
Bailly on the nth. Among other prominent persons whose 
heads fell beneath the knife during the next few months were 
the Princess Elisabeth (the late King's sister) ; the once all- 
powerful Mme du Barry ; the generals lyuckner, Houchard, 
Custine, and Beauharnais ; the Constituent Barnave ; the 
poets Roucher and Andre Chenier ; the chemist lyavoisier ; 

1 others among the leading Girondins who met with violent ends were 
Salles, Guadet, and Barbaroux, who were guillotined and Potion, Buzot, 
Roland, and Condorcet, who committed suicide. 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

and the former minister Malesherbes. Nor was the Terror 
confined to the capital. Its atrocities were even more appal- 
ling in some of the provinces. Collot-d'Herbois, Fouche, 
and Couthon, sent to lyyon to punish that city for its recent 
revolt, accomplished their mission with merciless destruction 
and slaughter. At Nantes, Carrier, the agent of the Conven- 
tion, finding that even at the rate of several hundred exe- 
cutions a day the guillotine was still too slow to keep pace 
with the Tribunal, devised a system of wholesale drownings 
(noyades) and shootings (fusillades), which enabled him to 
account for some 15,000 persons in the space of four months. 
Only less monstrous were the excesses committed by Tallien 
at Bordeaux, by Barras and Freron at Toulon, and by Joseph 
lycbon at Arras. 

After the fall of the Gironde, however, the Mountain itself 
began to break up into factions, and a conflict soon arose 
between Hebert and the Commune of Paris on the one hand 
and Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety on 
the other. The Hebertists, or enrages, who advocated the 
extremest measures of Terror, were for the moment in the 
ascendant, and it was chiefly at their dictation that the 
Convention abolished Christianity by introducing a new 
Republican calendar ^ and establishing a Cult of Reason, 
which was inaugurated on October 10 in Notre-Dame, when 
the Goddess of Reason, impersonated by a handsome young 
actress of the Opera, took the place of the '' ci-devant sainte 
Vierge." But the situation was soon complicated by the rise 
of a new party of indulgents. Early in December Camille 
Desmoulins began in his new paper, Le Vieux Cordelier, to 
denounce the policy of bloodshed and to plead for clemency. 
At first his main effort was directed against the enrages. But 

^ This calendar was dated from September 22, 1792. the first day of the 
Republic. The year was divided into twelve months : Vendemiaire, Brumaire, 
Frumaire (autumn) ; Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose (winter) ; Germinal, Flor^al, 
Prairial (spring) ; Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor (summer). E^ach month 
had three weeks and each week ten days ; and every tenth day (decacli) was 
a day of rest. The remaining five days of the year were festivals [sans- 
culottides) ; the extra sixth day of leap-year was the Festival of the Revolution. 

515 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

before long he turned also upon the Committee of Public 
Safety. Robespierre, who had hitherto encouraged him, now 
found himself caught between two fires. In this critical junc- 
ture he showed his usual timidity, but his loyal henchman 
Saint-Just provided the practical energy which he lacked and 
at once carried the war into the Hebertist camp. The 
Hebertists thereupon endeavoured to organize a popular 
rising against the Government. But Paris was growing 
weary of insurrections ; the attempt failed ; and Hebert 
himself, the procureur Chaumette, Anacharsis Cloots, and 
other members of the party, nineteen in all, were guillotined 
(March 24-April 14, 1794). In the meantime, Danton, who 
had retired in disgust to Arcis-sur-Aube, returned to Paris, 
where he at first supported Robespierre against the enrages. 
B^ut he soon threw in his lot with Desmoulins. Upon this 
Saint-Just proceeded to eliminate the Dantonists (as the 
Moderates were now called), as he had already eliminated the 
Hebertists. On April 2-4 both Danton and Desmoulins were 
tried before the Tribunal. Danton made a tremendous fight 
against his accusers, and for the moment it seemed possible 
that he might even arouse the uncertain passions of the multi- 
tude in his favour. But Saint-Just had his way, and Danton 
fell a victim to the tyranny he had done so much to organize. 
He and Desmoulins went to the scaffold together (April 5), 
and a number of their followers, including Chabot, Fabre 
d'figlantine, Basire, Herault de Sechelles, and Philippeaux, 
shared their < fate. 

This triumph of the Committee meant the practical dictator- 
ship of Robespierre, with Saint- Just and Couthon as his sup- 
porters ; for the Commune was now reduced to subjection ; 
the Convention was cowed ; while even the clubs and cafes 
of the city were silenced and paralysed. The policy of Terror 
was now pursued with even greater fury, the final stage — ^the 
Grande Terreur — opening with the atrocious decree of 22 
Prairial (June 10), which swept away the last remnants of 
legality in the proceedings of the Tribunal and practically 
deprived suspected persons of all right of defence. After this 

S16 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

*' heads fell like slates/' and men, women, and even children 
perished in batches in an undiscriminating butchery, at the 
rate of thirty, forty, and even fifty a day. At the same time 
Robespierre -seized the opportunity which was now presented 
to him to realize his religious ideal. A sentimental deist after 
the fashion of Rousseau's Savoyard Vicar, he had recoiled 
horrified from the atheism of Hebert and the Cult of Reason. 
In pursuance of a policy which had already sent Gobel, the 
renegade Archbishop of Paris, to the guillotine, those suspected 
of atheism were now brought before the Tribunal, while the 
people of France were called upon to accept as the creed of 
the State the doctrines of the existence of a Supreme Being, 
the immortality of the soul, and the moral duty of man. On 
20 Prairial (June 8) — ^two days only before the ferocious decree 
just mentioned — Robespierre himself took the chief part in 
a solemn farce in the garden of the Tuileries to celebrate the 
introduction of the new religion. The details of the ceremony 
were almost incredibly childish. But the climax of absurdity 
was reached shortly afterward when a crazy old spiritualist, 
named Catherine Theot, announced that she was the Mother 
of Cod and that Robespierre was the new saviour of the 
world. 

Fall of Robespierre : The Thermidorian Reaction 

Robespierre's ascendancy was, however, destined to be very 
brief. Many of his colleagues dreaded him or were jealous 
of his pretensions. Beneath the surface in city and Conven- 
tion alike a tide of feeling was rising fast against the senseless 
brutalities of the despotic regime. If any excuse could ever 
have been urged for Terrorism it was provided by the national 
danger. But that danger had been destroyed by the successes 
of the French armies in all the theatres of war, and when 
news reached Paris of Jourdan's great victory over the 
Austrians at Fleurus (June 26, 1794) and the reoccupation 
of Belgium the temper of the public underwent a radical 
change. Timid, unpractical, wholly lacking in political insight 
and in resolution, Robespierre was powerless to stand up 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

against the growing hostility which now became apparent. 
Saint-Just, indeed, made frantic efforts to choke it before it 
could become dangerous. But his ill-timed demand for a 
recognized dictatorship, which was of course understood to 
refer to Robespierre, and Robespierre's own threats of sum- 
mary vengeance against his enemies, only served to frighten 
the Convention into action. All parties — ^the survivors of the 
Dantonists and the Hebertists, the remnant of the Gironde, 
the Moderates of the Centre — combined against the tyrant 
who menaced them all. A short, fierce struggle ensued, in 
which Robespierre endeavoured to defeat the Convention with 
the help of the Commune and the National Guard. But on 
9 Thermidor (July 27), amid scenes of wild excitement, the 
Convention rose against him and ordered his arrest. The 
Jacobin Club and the Commune made one more effort to save 
their hero, but the insurrection collapsed. On July 28 Robes- 
pierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, and nineteen of their supporters 
went to the guillotine ; seventy-one members of the Commune 
followed the next day ; twelve again the day after ; and by 
this final outburst of Terror the Terror itself was virtually 
brought to a close. 

Vergniaud's prophecy of sixteen months before — ^that the 
Revolution, like Saturn, would successively devour all its 
children — had now been fulfilled. In the reaction which 
followed the triumph of the ' Thermidorians ' there was, 
indeed, serious danger lest the principles of the Revolution 
should be forgotten, and the Convention itself found it neces- 
sary to affirm the existence of the Revolutionary Government. 
That Government was, however, greatly modified. The Com- 
mittee of Public Safety and the Tribunal were reorganized with 
curtailed powers ; the law of 22 Prairial was repealed ; the 
Convention assumed the functions of administration ; the 
Commune was abolished. At the same time a systematic 
attack was directed against the defeated Mountaineers, who 
were not even now prepared to yield without further struggle — 
an attack carried on outside by the Orateur du Peuple of the 
former Cordelier Freron, and other journals, and by groups 

518 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

of young men — jeunes gens, la jeunesse dorie, les Muscadins — 
who vowed vengeance upon sans-culottisme and paraded the 
streets armed with heavy sticks, assaulting the Jacobins and 
breaking up their meetings. On November 12 that great 
centre of popular agitation the Jacobin Club was closed. On 
December 8 seventy-three Girondins who had fled from Paris 
on the fall of their party were recalled. In the M^arch follow- 
ing a determined attempt was made to suppress the dema- 
gogues who were still stirring up trouble ; two of the most 
notorious of them, Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d'Herbois, 
were transported to Cayenne ; and this would also have been 
the fate of Barer e and Vadier, but that the former contrived 
to escape from prison, while the latter found safety in hiding. 
During the winter of 1794-95, with the ruinous fall in the 
value of the assignats and the enormous rise in the price of 
food, there was much distress and discontent throughout the 
country, and these led to disturbances in Paris, which, fomented 
by the Jacobins, culminated in the bread riots of 12 Germinal 
(April I, 1795) and the rising of i Prairial (May 20). But 
though the second of these movements assumed very formid- 
able proportions, it was finally quelled by the National Guard. 
Thereupon six prominent members of the Mountain were sent 
to the scaffold and the power of the extreme Jacobins was 
broken. On the other hand, there was serious danger from 
royalist reaction in the provinces. In the south a Terreur 
Blanche was organized, and fearful reprisals taken for the 
excesses of the Terreur Rouge, while civil war was renewed 
in Vendee, where the native insurgents were reinforced by 
dmigres, who saw in the Thermidorian triumph the promise 
of the restoration of the Old Regime. 

Amid all these internal troubles, however, the successes of 
the French armies continued, and by the Treaties of Basel 
(April 5 and July 22, 1795) peace was made with Spain and 
Prussia on terms which included the recognition of the national 
Government by these two Powers. Coincidently the failure of an 
emigrant descent, aided by England, upon Quiberon (July 21) 
brought about the collapse of the royalist revolt in the west. 

519 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

End of the Convention 

In the meantime the new Constitution was completed — 
that of Year III — to take the place of the Jacobin Constitution 
of 1793, which still remained on paper. This Constitution was 
adopted on 5 Fructidor (August 22). 

But the career of the Convention, tempesttious throughout, 
was not to close without one more storm. The new Constitu- 
tion, the chief provisions of which were already known to the 
public, was welcomed by the reactionaries because they saw 
in it the opportunity of making a clean sweep of the Conven- 
tionals and so preparing the way for a counter-revolution. 
To obviate this danger and to perpetuate its own power the 
Convention on 5 and 13 Fructidor (August 22 and 30) decreed 
th^t two-thirds of the coming legislature must be composed 
of its own members. These decrees were accepted by the 
provinces and embodied in the final proclamation of i Vende- 
miaire (September 23) . But in Paris they aroused the deepest 
indignation among the malcontents. On 13 Vendemiaire 
(October 5) there was a serious rising of the sections, and some 
40,000 insurgents marched to the Tuileries, where the Conven- 
tion was in session. But there they found a body of troops 
under the command of a young Corsican named Buonaparte 
ready to receive them, and at the first " whiff of grapeshot " 
they broke and dispersed. That same day Barras was able 
to assure the assembly that the Government was safe. 

Three weeks later the National Convention dissolved. In 
tracing the course of events during the three years of its 
existence we have been compelled to fix our attention mainly 
on the forces of destruction which it let loose. But we must 
not forget that it did much constructive work of a valuable 
kind. Not only did it save the country from foreign foes, 
but it also began to lay the foundations of a new France. 
During the Jacobin ascendancy, indeed, it passed much legisla- 
tion of a wildly communistic character ; but its permanent 
contributions to progress must be sought elsewhere. It estab- 
lished a standard metrical system of weights and measures. 
520 



THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 

It introduced a system of public education. The Polytechnic 
School, the Institute of France, the Conservatory of Arts 
and Crafts, the Conservatory of Music, the Museum of Natural 
History, were- its creation. All these things are to its credit. 
Another more general remark must also be made. The 
struggles, intrigues, anarchy, and bloodshed which marked 
the period of its rule are not hastily to be set down to the 
account of liberty and democracy. A people born and bred 
in servitude is never likely in the moment of its emancipation 
to exhibit those virtues of patience and self-restraint which 
only the discipline of ordered freedom can foster, and the 
worst abuses of the Reign of Terror are really to be regarded 
as the inevitable aftermath of the evils of the Old Regime.^ 

1 It is greatly to his credit that our own Wordsworth, notwithstanding his 
recoil to Toryism, perceived this [Prelude, Book X, 11. 470 ff.). It was also 
perceived by Shelley (Preface to The Revolt of Islam) and by the Swedish poet 
Tegner. 



5- 



CHAPTER V 

THE DIRECTORY 

October 1795-NovEMBER 1799 

THE Constitution of Year III was the work of the 
Moderate Republican party and bore many traces 
of the spirit of reaction. The avowed object of its 
f tamers was to establish a " Government of the best," and 
tjiey were evidently convinced that this could not be attained 
without the abandonment of many of the principles of pure 
democracy. Universal suffrage was suppressed, the franchise 
was limited by the reintroduction of a property qualification, 
and the method of election by two degrees, which had been 
a prominent feature of the Constitution of 1791, was restored. 
The abuses to which a single chamber is liable having been 
amply demonstrated by recent events, the bicameral system 
was adopted. The lyCgislature was composed of a Corps 
Legislatif , or Council of Five Hundred, and a Council of 
Ancients, consisting of half that number. The lower house, 
members of which had to be at least thirty years of age, 
initiated all legislation. The main function of tjie upper 
house, which was elected by the lower, and to which married 
men or widowers of forty or over were alone eligible, was to 
exercise the suspensive veto which the Constitution of 179 1 
had entrusted to the King. Fear of royalty being still so 
strong that any suggestion of a single head or president of the 
Republic was obviously inadmissible, the executive authority 
"as lodged in the hands of five Directors, who were selected 
the Ancients from a list submitted to them by the Five 
ired. These Directors, who had also to be over forty, 
ed one by one yearly and were ineligible for re-election. 



THE DIRECTORY 

The complete separation of the legislative and executive 
powers, which had been a curious obsession with previous 
Constitution-makers, was maintained. No member of either 
chamber could hold any executive office, and the Directory 
was independent alike of the I^egislature and of public opinion. 
The first Directors were Ivarevelliere-Lepeaux, Rewbell, I^etour- 
neur, Barras, and Carnot, all ex-Conventionals who had voted 
for the death of the King, and were therefore regarded as 
whole-heartedly committed to the Republic. 

France during the Directory 

The preamble to the new Constitution was conceived in a 
singularly didactic spirit, and expressly emphasized the import- 
ance of personal morality in the State. '' No one," it declared, 
'' can be a good citizen unless he is a good son, a good father, 
a good brother, a good friend, and a good husband." Such 
platitudes were well meant, but the social history of the next 
few years provides a strange commentary upon them. For 
the period of the Directory was in fact a period of dissolution. 
After the long strain of fierce passions and deadly struggles 
a sweeping reaction set in. Pleasure became ' the order of 
the day.' " Chacun," wrote Mallet du Pan in 1796, " ne 
pense plus qu'a jouir, boire, et manger." A frenzy of extrava- 
gance and a rage for luxury and ostentation seized the wealthier 
classes. Gambling and speculation were universal. The salon 
was again in full swing, but as a centre, not of intellectual 
interests, but of dissipation. The public gardens and places 
of popular resort, the theatres, the ball-rooms, the restaurants 
which now sprang up in Paris, were thronged. The mania 
for Graeco-Roman antiquity, which had formerly bred men 
like Vergniaud and women like Mme de Roland, now inspired 
v/hat was supposed to be a ' classic ' revival in dress, and the 
fashions of the women were grotesquely eccentric and often 
audaciously indecent. From top to bottom of the social 
scale there was a loosening of the national fibre. Morals 
and manners were alike depraved. The number of divorces 
increased enormously, and everywhere the marriage tie and 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the sanctities of family and home were cynically derided. At 
the same time in public life dishonesty was general and corrup- 
tion and venality flourished unchecked. This political rot 
must in particular be recognized on account of its direct 
connexion with what was soon to follow. It prepared the 
way for military despotism, and especially for the dominating 
personality who now rose rapidly into prominence, and was 
shortly to become not only the controlling force in the destinies 
of France, but also the greatest figure on the European stage. 

The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte 

Napoleone Buonaparte — in the Gallicized form of the name 
which he presently adopted, Napoleon Bonaparte ^ — sprang 
from an Italian stock, and was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 
August 15, 1769, little more than a year after his native island 
had been annexed to France. At the age of nine he was placed 
in the College of Autun, where he remained three months in 
order to learn French enough to enable him to take up his 
studies, first at the Military School in Brienne, which he 
entered in April 1779, and later in the Military College in Paris, 
to which he was transferred in October 1784. On passing his 
final examinations in September 1785 he obtained his com- 
mission as second-lieutenant in the artillery. Then for some 
years he led a life of poverty and struggle, incidentally gaining 
a reputation as a firebrand through his activity on the Re- 
publican side in the revolutionary disturbances in Corsica. 
He was in Paris in the summer of 1792 ; saw the procession 
of sans-culoUes to the Tuileries on June 20 ('* Why did they 
let those blackguards get in there ? " he exclaimed to his 
friend Bourrienne, who was with him) ; and was also an eye- 
witness of the more serious affair of August 10. These events 
seem to have destroyed his youthful dreams of democracy and 
liberty. Yet he perceived quite clearly that it would be to 
his present advantage to ally himself with the ' patriots,' and 
with his characteristic want of principle he accordingly espoused 

* It will be seen, however, that, in accordance with established English 
custom, I henceforth write the name Napoleon without the accent. 

524 



THE DIRECTORY 

the Jacobin cause, which he supported with pen as well as 
sword. He first made his mark by the conspicuous part 
which he took in the crushing of the anti- Jacobin rebellion at 
Toulon, his reward being promotion to the rank of brigadier- 
general. The fall of Robespierre threatened to involve him 
in irretrievable disaster, and even when he was released from 
Fort Carre, near Antibes, where he was imprisoned for thirteen 
days with the shadow of the guillotine hanging over him, it 
seemed for the moment that his career as a soldier had practi- 
cally come to an end. But the course of political events soon 
brought a sensational change in his prospects. On the out- 
break of the reactionary movement against the Constitution 
of Year III he was asked by Barras, to whom he had attached 
himself, to take the second command of the army of the 
Convention. Only the day before he had said to Junot : 
'' If only these sectionaries would put me at their head I 
would make short work of the Convention 1 " But in the 
true spirit of the soldier of fortune he seized his chance, and 
his success in scattering the sections on 13 Vendemiaire and 
so saving the Government made him the man of the hour. 
His advancement was now rapid, and he was soon Commander- 
in-Chief of the Army of the Interior. He further strengthened 
his political position by marrying on March 9, 1796, a woman 
of considerable influence in the inner circles of the Directory — 
Marie- Josephine-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, widow of the 
guillotined general Alexandre de Beauharnais. 

Meanwhile Carnot, who was still at the head of military 
affairs, as he had been under the Convention, had decided to 
push the war against Austria, in accordance with a comprehen- 
sive plan of action, in three directions, one army, under Jourdan, 
operating in the north-east, a second, under Moreau, on the 
Rhine, while a third, the command of which was given to Bona- 
parte, was to invade Italy. The German campaigns collapsed ; 
but Bonaparte's expedition was a series of brilliant successes, 
in which he amazed the world by his supreme military genius, 
his marvellous fertility in resource, the boldness of his strategy, 
the bewildering rapidity of his movements, and the resolution 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

with which he carried out his ideas. Crossing the Alps he 
quickly overran Piedmont ; forced the King of Sardinia to sign 
the armistice of Cherasco (April 1796) ; drove the Austrians 
before him to the Adda ; entered Milan (May 15) ; gained 
victory after victory, notably in the great battles of Areola 
(November 1796) and Rivoli (January 1797) ; made himself 
master of Northern Italy ; reduced the Pope to submission ; 
and crowned the triumphs of eighteen months with the Treaty 
of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), by which Austria ceded 
the Netherlands to France, acknowledged the independence 
of the new republics of Genoa and lyombardy, and recognized 
the natural frontier of France on the left bank of the Rhine. 

While, however, the young conqueror's dramatic success 
naturally gave satisfaction to the ' Cinq Sires ' in Paris, it 
p;:ovided them also with good ground for alarm. Already he 
had made them uneasy by his restlessness, his ambition, and 
his intriguing spirit, and it was indeed in part because they 
recognized in him an element of danger to their peace at home 
that they had sent him to Italy. But his conduct in Italy 
had served to increase the strain in their relationship. He 
had made it only too evident that though he was nominally 
working for them, he really despised them. Throughout his 
campaign he had persistently acted on his own initiative in 
diplomatic as well as in military matters ; he had either not 
waited for instructions from headquarters or had coolly ignored 
them when they did not happen to fit in with his own views ; 
and in his dealings with foreign Powers he had boldly usurped 
the authority which properly belonged to the central Govern- 
ment alone. Such behaviour was manifestly disquieting. On 
his triumphant return to Paris he was officially welcomed by 
the Directors in a grand ceremony in the court of the I^uxem- 
bourg (December 10); but when his craving for adventure 
prompted him to fresh undertakings, they were only too willing 
to agree to his gigantic scheme for the conquest of Egypt, 
because, whatever might be its issue, it had the advantage of 
getting him once more out of their way. 

The expedition to Egypt, which had as its ultimate object 
526 



THE DIRECTORY 

the destruction of English supremacy in the East, proved, 
however, a grandiose failure. Sailing from Toulon on May 19, 
1798, Bonaparte seized Malta (June 11), occupied Alexandria 
(July 2), overthrew the Mamelukes in the Battle of the 
Pyramids (July 21), and entered Cairo (July 23). But Nelson's 
annihilation of his fleet in the Bay of Aboukir (August i) 
upset all his plans and put him into a position of great diffi- 
culty. His communications by sea cut off, he was now com- 
pelled to seek a way out by land. He therefore struck out 
for Syria, captured Gaza and Jaffa, and defeated the Turks 
at Mount Thabor (April 16, 1799). But his rebuff at Saint- 
Jean-d'Acre, after sixty-one days of siege and fourteen assaults 
upon the city, finally shattered his dream of Eastern empire. 
By this time his army was greatly reduced by hardship and 
pestilence and was in a pitiable state of exhaustion. He 
therefore turned back to Cairo. There he received the first 
news from home which had reached him for six months, and 
it was news of a kind to stir him to instant action. The arms 
of the Republic had suffered serious reverses in a fresh war 
against a European coalition ; France was threatened by 
Anglo- Russian forces ; the whole country was in a ferment 
of political unrest ; the Directory was discredited and totter- 
ing to its fall. Bonaparte saw that, in his own phrase, " the 
pear was ripe," and he resolved to grasp it without delay. 
Basely abandoning his army and leaving his subordinate 
Kleber to face certain disaster, he made a perilous journey 
to France, barely escaping the English cruisers on the way, 
landed on October 9 at Saint-Raphael (where fifteen years 
later he was to re-embark for Elba), travelled hurriedly through 
Aix, Avignon, Valence, and I^yon, amid the acclamations of 
an excited people, and reached Paris on the i6th. 

The I 8th Brumaire 

The internal history of the Directory during the five years 
of its existence had been a record of steady decay. At the 
outset the Executive was badly harassed by the old financial 
difficulty, which it attempted to overcome by an issue of 

527 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

mandats territoriaux (exchangeable for land) to replace the 
now exploded assignats, and by other desperate devices. 
These, however, were only temporary expedients, and the 
continued strain of war, though to some extent relieved by 
the huge sums which Bonaparte sent home as the proceeds 
of his plunder in Italy, was felt as time went on with ever- 
increasing severity. Political trouble was also rife. There 
was a new rising, encouraged by England, in Vendee, which 
was, however, suppressed by Hoche (February-March 1796), 
and a popular revolt under the CoUectivist leader, Baboeuf 
(May 1796). The Royalists, too, were active. The elections 
of Year V brought into the councils a large body of deputies 
avowedly anxious for the restoration of the monarchy, and 
a Bourbon sympathizer, Barthelemy, at the same time entered 
the Directory.^ This led to the coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor 
(September 4, I797),by which the Republican Directors Barras, 
lyarevelli^re-IvCpeaux, and Rewbell, with the help of their 
supporters in the councils, made a clearance of their enemies, 
many of whom were exiled, while Barthelemy and his asso- 
ciate Carnot had to fly the country. A second coup d'etat 
on 22 Floreal, Year VI (May 11, 1798), was directed 
against the Jacobins, to whom the new elections had been 
favourable. By such unconstitutional violence the feeble 
Government attempted to cover up its weakness. But by 
thus overriding the will of the people, as well as by other acts 
of despotism — such as the renewed persecution of the priests, 
forced loan§, and the gagging of the Press — it succeeded only 
in alienating nearly all classes throughout the country, and 
when Bonaparte arrived in Paris it was evident that its doom 
was sealed. This was his opportunity. His immense popu- 
larity made him confident that he could carry the country 
with him, and he determined to turn the situation to his own 
advantage. Siey^s, now a member of the Directory and the 
only one who really counted, was even then meditating the 

* The son of I^ouis XVI, known as I<ouis XVII, had died in the Temple ^ 
in 1795. The late King's brother, the Count of Provence, was now, therefore, | J 
the pretender to the throne. | 

528 ] 



THE DIRECTORY 

destruction of what was left of the Constitution of Year III. 
Bonaparte resolved to use him as his tool. A second Director, 
Ducos, was brought into the plot. A majority of both councils 
could be depended upon to support the conspirators when the 
critical moment came. It was certain that the military would 
follow the man who was pre-eminently the soldiers' hero. 
Kvery thing being thus in readiness, a mythical Jacobin plot 
was concocted in order that, as a matter of precaution, the 
lyCgislature might be isolated at Saint-Cloud,^ and Bonaparte 
was placed in command of the guards which were supposedly 
to assure its safety. On i8 Brumaire (November 9, 1799) 
the councils accordingly met at Saint-Cloud, and there, after 
some hours of wild tumult, during which Bonaparte himself 
was almost torn to pieces by the infuriated Republicans, they 
were overwhelmed by the military, whose rolling drums finally 
drowned the voices of the representatives of the people, and 
the Directory was at an end. 

* This was in accordance with a clause in the Constitution providing for 
the removal of the I^egislature from Paris in case of danger from the populace. 



2 L 529 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CONSULATE 

November 1799-MAY 1804 

THOUGH the scheme of the new Constitution — ^that of 
Year VIII — was drawn up by Sieyes (whose original 
design was a miracle of philosophical ingenuity), and 
though all its details were discussed by two commissions 
appointed for the purpose, it was in essence the work of Bona- 
pfkrte himself, who took good care that nothing should be 
included in it which conflicted with his own views or would 
be4ikely to check his ambitions. Under the form of a republic, 
indeed, it introduced the thin end of the wedge of absolutism. 
The Executive was composed of three consuls, all elected for 
ten years, and all eligible for re-election. It was part of Bona- 
parte's plan that the Executive should be supreme in the 
State ; it was equally part of his plan that he should be supreme 
in the Executive ; and accordingly the full authority of govern- 
ment was vested in him as First Consul, while his colleagues 
were allowed only a '' consultative voice " in affairs. The 
legislative machinery was extremely complex, but it was 
cunningly devised to place the largest possible measure of 
power in his hands. The Executive alone could initiate 
legislation. The legislation proposed by it was then drafted 
by a Conseil d'&at, and passed through an intricate course 
of procedure in a Tribunat and a Corps lyCgislatif , the former 
of which was a chamber for discussion, the latter for voting. 
There was also a Senate, whose function it was to safeguard 
the Constitution, which had therefore the right to annul any 
legislation which it pronounced unconstitutional, and which 
thus provided a further obstacle to the expression of public 
opinion through the laws. But indeed little of pubHc opinion 
530 



f 



li. 



THE CONSULATE 

could now find its way through the network of the electoral 
system. The electors of each commune chose notahilites com- 
munales, in the ratio of one in ten of their number ; these 
in turn chose, in the same ratio, notahilites departementales ; 
these again notahilites nationales; and it was from these 
notahilites nationales that the Senate selected the I^egislature. 
The Senate itself, appointed in the first instance by the Execu- 
tive, was to be recruited by itself from a triple list presented 
by the Corps lyegislatif, the Tribunat, and the First Consul. 
With the First Consul also rested the nomination of ministers 
and other important functionaries of administration. Such 
was the basis of the Constitution promulgated on December 24, 
1799. Then, by a supplem-entary enactment of 28 Pluviose 
(February 17, 1800), the whole internal machinery of the 
country was remodelled in harmony with these fundamental 
principles, and extreme centralization — a centralization even 
greater than that which had prevailed under lyouis XIV — was 
obtained by means of prefects, sub-prefects, and m^ayors, all 
of whom were the nominees of the Government. It will 
therefore be seen that though the empty phraseology of 
republicanism was still employed, the merest shadow of 
popular institutions was now left to France. All real power 
was vested in the First Consul, who as head at once of the 
army and of the State became in reality if not in name supreme 
dictator. 

Bonaparte's associates in the Kxecutive were Cambacer^s, 
formerly a member of the Plaine in the Convention, and I^e- 
brun, who years before had been a coadjutor of the Chancellor 
Maupeou. Siey^s became President and Ducos a member of 
the Senate. 

War with Austria and England : The Peace 
OF Amiens 

On assuming power Bonaparte, conceding to the sentiment 
of the people, made overtures of peace to Austria and England, 
now the only active enemies of France, but he was glad when 
these were rejected, for his mind was set upon the continuance 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of war. There were already two armies in the field : one, 
under Moreau, on the Rhine, the other, under Massena, on the 
Italian Riviera. But Bonaparte did not propose that either 
of these generals should reap the glory of the coming campaign. 
In the greatest secrecy he accordingly assembled a third army 
between Geneva and lyausanne, of which he took command 
in person in May 1800, and with which he made his famous 
passage across the Alps by way of the Great St Bernard. His 
sudden appearance on the plains of lyombardy (for it was as 
if he had dropped from the clouds) took the Austrians by 
surprise, and at Marengo (June 14) he inflicted a crushing 
defeat upon them. An armistice was then arranged, and after 
a campaign of forty days -Bonaparte hurried back to Paris, 
where he was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm. It was 
not, however, till after Moreau's victory at Hohenlinden 
(December 3) that the war with Austria was actually brought 
to a close. Meanwhile Nelson's naval successes and the almost 
total destruction of the French fleet frustrated his design of 
isolating England, and when the I^eague of Neutrals, which 
had been formed to keep the seas open against Britain, 
collapsed, he found himself compelled to come to term.s with 
his one remaining foe, who was herself weary of the long and 
fruitless struggle. General peace was then concluded by a 
number of treaties, of which the most important were those 
of lyuneville (January 1801) and Amiens (March 1802). The 
former ratified the Treaty of Campo Formio and made a few 
additional concessions to France. The latter, which was 
intended to settle the points in dispute between France, 
England, Spain, and Holland, provided for an all-round read- 
justment of the colonial possessions of these Powers and for 
the evacuation by France of Egypt, the Two Sicilies, and the 
Papal States. France gained in particular by the recovery 
of her lost colonies, and by the recognition, save as specified, 
of her Continental acquisitions. 

The pacification of Europe and the restoration of France 
to a paramount place among the nations contributed enor- 
mously to Bonaparte's prestige, and he was now the idol of 



THE CONSULATE 

the great mass of the people. His immense popularity enabled 
him to take another step upward on the ladder of his ambitions. 
In May 1802 the Senate extended his tenure of office by a 
further period of ten years, as " a signal mark of national 
gratitude." On August 2 he was proclaimed Consul for life. 
This change was, of course, made at his dictation. To assure 
his position, however, he had it referred to a plebiscite, and it 
was accepted by an overwhelming majority of the electors. 
In the revision of the Constitution which followed the ten- 
dency toward the further development of absolutism was very 
evident. The powers of the Senate, which was little more 
than an instrument of the Executive, were greatly extended. 
Those of the Legislature were correspondingly curtailed. The 
First Consul also obtained in various ways an even firmer 
control of all departments of administration. 

Napoleon's Administration as First Consul 

It must, however, be remembered that it was not Bonaparte's 
military achievements alone which magnetized the French 
people and made them willing to acknowledge him as their 
master. He brought to the whole country, long distracted 
by anarchy and now impatient of the weakness of incompetent 
rulers, the blessings of a strong government. At the outset 
he had made a stirring appeal for unity : " There are no 
longer," he declared, '' Jacobins or Moderates or Royalists ; 
there are only Frenchmen." This struck a note to which the 
nation was quick to respond. Then, with the amazing energy 
which characterized him, he set his hand to the task of restoring 
order and reviving prosperity. His ambition was " to build 
and to build solidly," and whatever judgment we may pass 
upon some of the features of his policy it must be admitted 
that it showed constructive statesmanship of the highest kind. 
He reorganized the finances in ways which ensured a com- 
bination of stability and elasticity, and founded the Bank 
of France. He systematized education by the creation of a 
number of important special institutions and by the linking 
up of the schools and colleges throughout the country with 

533 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

the central university in Paris. He gave great attention to 
the development of agriculture and industry ; built ports, 
harbours, and bridges, dug canals, laid out public roads. He 
appointed a commission to undertake the unification of the 
laws in what later was to be the gigantic Code Civil or Code 
Napoleon. He also re-established the Church in France. The 
Constitution of Year VIII had granted complete religious 
toleration, and even the pretres insermentes were allowed to 
perform their rites. But religion was divorced from the State, 
derived no support from it, and gave it no help, and in the 
general confusion which prevailed public worship had fallen 
into abeyance in many parts of the country. Though himself 
cynically indifferent to religion, Bonaparte had a keen sense 
of its public utility ; " Those who govern," he held, " should 
employ it to influence men " ; and with this end in view he 
negotiated a Concordat with the Pope (July 1801) by which 
he made the Gallican Church once more a State Church. This 
was an excellent stroke of policy, for — ^in a measure at least — 
it conciliated the Holy See, it delighted the great body of 
devout Catholics, and it detached the clergy from the Royalist 
cause. At the same time Protestantism and Judaism were 
also transformed into vState religions. Practically the whole 
religious organization of France was thus brought under the 
control of the Government. 

Yet though the country at large seemed satisfied with the 
First Consul's rule, his pretensions did not pass unchallenged. 
Here and there the yoke of despotism was felt to gall. The 
feeble efforts of the I^egislature to resist the encroachments 
of arbitrary power were, indeed, put down with a strong hand ; 
the Tribunat was soon reduced to submission ; the malcontent 
Press was effectually silenced. But there were still Jacobin 
irreconcilables who hated Bonaparte as an autocrat, and fervent 
lyCgitimists who despised him as an upstart and a usurper, and 
from both he incurred danger. One night in October 1800 
an attempt was made by a gang of Republicans to stab him 
as he entered the Opera House. Before the close of the year 
a more serious plot against his life, organized by the Chouan 

S34 



THE CONSULATE 

leader Georges Cadoudal, almost succeeded. Though Bona- 
parte knew that this plot was of Royalist origin, he used it 
as the occasion for a ruthless attack upon the Jacobins, whom 
for the moment he was most anxious to crush, and many 
prominent members of the party, whose innocence was of 
course patent, were transported forthwith to Cayenne. By 
such tyrannical measures he stamped out all signs of discontent, 
and little occurred to disturb the domestic tranquillity of the 
country till the last months of the Consulate. 

But though internal calm was secured the peace of Europe 
was soon broken. On both sides of the Channel the Treaty 
of Amiens was regarded as only temporary and the renewal 
of hostilities as merely a matter of time and circumstance. 
Bonaparte's ambition to make himself master of Europe was 
already manifest, and his course was followed with the utmost 
vigilance by the jealous Power which saw its own interests 
threatened by every fresh move which he made in his great 
game of aggression. His attempt to suppress the negro in- 
surrection in San Domingo under Toussaint-Iyouverture, in 
1802, though it ended in failure, was taken as evidence of his 
intention to establish a French colonial empire. His actions 
on the Continent were still more provocative, for he annexed 
Piedmont and the island of Elba and made them into French 
departments, took possession of Parma on the death of its 
duke, assumed the presidency of the Cisalpine Republic, 
' mediated ' with an army of 30,000 men in the disturbances 
of the Helvetic Confederation, and interfered in the affairs of 
the ecclesiastical principalities of Germany. England replied 
to these acts of usurpation by refusing to evacuate Malta in 
accordance with her undertaking, and seized all merchant 
vessels sailing under the French or Dutch flag. Bonaparte 
retaliated by invading the Electorate of Hanover. At the 
same time he hastened forward the preparations which he 
was already making at Boulogne for an invasion of England, 
while the British Government began to seek Continental 
allies. 

S35 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Royalist Plots : Execution of the 
Duke of Enghien 

At this point the Bourbon party saw their opportunity to 
make one more attempt to destroy the man who now alone 
seemed to stand in their way, and a conspiracy was hatched 
in lyondon, with the connivance of the British Cabinet, of 
which the leading agents were Georges Cadoudal, who since 
his previous failure had attached himself to the Count of 
Artois, and the ex-general and traitor Charles Pichegru. But 
their plans were discovered (January-March 1804) ; Pichegru 
committed suicide ; Cadoudal was sent to the scaffold ; while 
Moreau, who had been implicated in the proceedings, was 
found guilty on insufficient evidence and sentenced to two 
years' imprisonment — a sentence which was, however, com- 
muted to banishment. But the mere suppression of the plot 
did not satisfy Bonaparte, who was determined by one tremen- 
dou's blow to terrorize the Royalists into subjection. Accord- 
ingly by his orders the young Duke of Bnghien, the heir of 
the Conde family, was in the meantime seized in the castle 
of Ettenheim, on the Rhine, where he was then living in 
absolute privacy, hurriedly conveyed to Vincennes, tried before 
an irregular military commission, condemned to death, and 
shot at once (March 21, 1804). Though it is true that the 
Duke had formerly been in the emigrant corps of his grand- 
father, the Prince of Conde, there was not a vestige of proof 
that he was ^ven privy to Cadoudal's designs. But this did 
not matter to Bonaparte. Nor did it matter to him that his 
arrest involved the violation of the neutrality of the duchy 
of Baden. This judicial murder of an innocent man was 
intended as an object-lesson to show the Bourbons, as Bona- 
parte himself said, '' of what we are capable." It served at 
least as an object-lesson to show the world that he was capable 
of defying the plainest principles of morality when by so doing 
he believed that he could attain a desired end. It would 
appear, though evidence on the point is conflicting, that he 
afterward came to realize that his action was a blunder. It 



THE CONSULATE 

was certainly a dastardly crime, and as such it remains one 
of the blackest blots upon his memory. 

Transformation of the Consulate into the Empire 

The renewal of Royalist activity, however, served his pur- 
pose. Ever since his appointment as Consul for life Bona- 
parte had been carefully preparing the way for the final move 
which he had long had in contemplation — the transformation 
of his authority into an hereditary right. Already the matter 
had been discussed in the Conseil d'^fitat. The Royalist danger 
was now made a pretext for bringing it to a head. The Senate 
formally proposed that the Republic should be converted into 
an Empire, and a motion to that effect was carried in the 
Tribunat with only one dissentient voice — that of Carnot.^ 
This was on the 3rd of May. On the i8th the Senate decreed 
that the title of Emperor should be conferred upon the '* citoyen 
Premier Consul," and should be transmissible to his descendants. 
On November 6 the decree was ratified by a plebiscite, and 
Napoleone Buonaparte, the Corsican soldier of fortune, became 
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. 

^ After the i8th Brumaire Carnot had returned from Germany, where he 
had been living in exile since the coup d'etat of the i8th Fructidor. 



537 



CHAPTER VII 

I 

THE EMPIRE 

1804-1815 



"^HB coronation of the Emperor took place in Notre- 
Dame on December 2, 1804. Napoleon was a master 
of spectacular effects and knew their value in impress- 
ing the popular imagination, and the ceremony was as imposing 
as money and consummate stage-management could make it. 
Europe was astonished that Pius VII should have consented 
to cross the Alps to give in person the papal benediction, for 
there was no precedent for such a course, and it was the more 
surprising because the Pope had anly recently expressed his 
abhorrence at the murder of the Duke of Enghien. But it 
was significant of Napoleon's arrogant temper that when the 
supreme moment came he refused to receive the symbol of 
his power even from the hands of the Pontiff. Though his 
Holiness stood by in readiness to perform the actual rite, the 
new Emperor himself took the crown and placed it upon his 
own head. JHe exhibited the same contempt of the Church 
when six months later in the Duomo of Milan he crowned 
himself King of Italy (May 26, 1805). 

The Imperial Constitution 

The Consular Constitution was now modified to meet the 
new conditions. The imperial title, was made hereditary in 
the male line of the Bonaparte family, in accordance with the 
Salic Law, and as Napoleon himself was childless it was decreed 
that in the event of his leaving no son the crown should pass 
to a collateral branch, first to that of his elder brother, Joseph, 
and, this failing, to that of his younger brother, lyouis. Such 

538 



THE EMPIRE 

alterations as were made in the Senate, the Corps I^egislatif, 
and the Tribunat were all in the direction of the further con- 
solidation of his individual power. I^ater revisions of the 
Constitution, were all devised for the same end, as when in 
1807 the Tribunat was suppressed altogether. 

Though the transformation of the Consulate into the Empire 
made little difference to the actual machinery of government, 
it was marked by a great change in all its accessory circum- 
stances. The ideal of democratic simplicity, which, if only 
as an ideal, had survived even the decadence of the Directory, 
was now abandoned, and the pomp of the Old Regime was 
revived. Already as First Consul Napoleon had begun to 
break with the social habits and fashions of the Republic ; 
'' The Directory," he declared, '' had been too simple, and for 
this reason it had not been respected" ; and under Citoyenne 
Josephine's leadership the Tuileries had begun to assume the 
appearance of a Court. Nor did he believe that the French 
people, however much they might talk and theorize, really 
cared anything about equality. " Men are fond of toys and 
are led by them," was his reply to the doctrinaires who grumbled 
when he founded a lyCgion of Honour for the reward of special 
services to the State. With the establishment of the Empire 
the new order of things was inaugurated in earnest. High- 
sounding titles were distributed with a lavish hand. The 
Emperor's brothers and sisters became princes and princesses ; 
Joseph, the Grand Elector ; lyouis, Constable of France ; 
Napoleon's former colleagues in the Consulate, Cambaceres 
and I^ebrun, the one Arch-Chancellor, the other Arch-Treasurer ; 
his principal generals were given the rank of marshals ; and 
there were also a Grand Almoner, a Grand Chamberlain 
(Talleyrand), a Grand Master of the Hounds, a Grand Master 
of the Horse, a Grand Master of the Palace, a Grand Master 
of the Ceremonies. These were merely personal distinctions. 
But before long the regular hierarchy of a new hereditary 
nobility was called into existence, with princes, dukes, counts, 
barons, and chevaliers ; though there was this much of dif- 
ference between the new aristocracy and the old, that the 

539 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

new depended upon individual merit in one or another form, 
and not upon titles " long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy 
rolls of Noah's ark." Jealous of his dignity as a man risen 
from the ranks and an intruder among the potentates of the 
world, the parvenu Bmperor was determined that he should 
at least be surrounded by all the splendours and appurtenances 
of royalty. The strictest etiquette now reigned where formerly 
republican freedom had prevailed ; the rules of precedence 
were enforced with punctilious exactitude ; gentlemen-in- 
waiting, ladies-in-waiting, pages, maids of honour abounded ; 
State functions were numerous and were on a scale of the 
utmost magnificence; and the Court of the Tuileries soon 
outrivalled in brilliancy the Courts of the other European 
capitals. 

The Third Coalition : The Treaty of Presburg 

At the time when the change of government occurred, it 
will be remembered, war between France and England, though 
not yet formally declared, had already been practically begun 
by acts of hostility on one and the other side. Napoleon was 
then bent on his great scheme for the conquest of England, 
the country which throughout his career he always regarded 
as the most formidable of his enemies. From the heights of 
Ambleteuse he had gazed across at the faint lines of the English 
coast, and, struck by their nearness, had rushed to the hasty 
conclusion that the Pas-de-Calais was only " un fosse qui sera 
franchi lorsqu'on aura I'audace de le tenter." He now resolved 
to make the attempt, and " to plant the Imperial eagle on the 
Tower of I^ondon." To this end he hastened forward his 
preparations, gathering a great flotilla on the north coast and 
establishing a vast camp at Boulogne, where for months his 
troops were kept ready and in splendid training. But Pitt 
returned to office at the moment when the danger of a French 
invasion of England seemed most acute, and to avert this 
menace, and at the same time to ensure the maintenance of 
a European equilibrium, he succeeded in forming the Third 
Coalition against France, the allies of Great Britain being 




6 



en 
W 

2 

B 

w 

w 

H 
O 

w 
a 
<i 
i-r 
<i 
cu 

w 
w 

H 



THE EMPIRE 

Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Naples. Hostilities began at 
once in several theatres of war. The camp at Boulogne was 
broken up, and Napoleon, at the head of the finest army in 
Europe, marrhed across the German states in utter disregard 
of all considerations of neutrality, threw himself upon the 
Austrians, who were completely baffled by his brilliant strategy, 
defeated them in several battles, and forced them to capitulate 
at Ulm (October 17, 1805). There news reached him that the 
French fleet had been annihilated by Nelson at Trafalgar 
(October 21). This meant, as he knew, that England was 
once more in absolute control of the sea and that all his 
chimerical schemes of invasion would have to be abandoned. 
Undeterred by this set-back, however, he pushed on toward 
Vienna, and in the great battle of Austerlitz, where Tsar and 
Kaiser commanded their troops in person, he routed the 
combined Russian and Austrian forces (December 2). 

This magnificent victory, which he afterward regarded as 
the " masterpiece " among all his battles, led to the Treaty 
of Presburg (December 26), which gave the world a signal 
proof not only of his skill in diplomacy, but also of his over- 
whelming ambition and imperial aims. The possessions of 
Austria were cut up according to his sovereign will ; the Holy 
Roman Empire was dissolved, and out of its ruins a new 
Confederation of the Rhine was organized under his own 
official protectorship. Then he distributed the spoils of con- 
quest among those whom he chose specially to recognize 
and reward, and thus constituted a number of feudal states 
over which he himself held suzerainty as a new Charlemagne. 
Joseph Bonaparte became King of Naples ; lyouis King of 
Holland ; the duchy of Guastalla was given to his sister 
Pauline ; the Grand Duchy of Berg to Murat, husband of his 
sister Caroline ; the duchy of I^ucques to his sister ifilisa ; the 
principalities of Neufchatel, Benevento, and Ponte-Corvo to 
Berthier, Talleyrand, and Bernadotte respectively. At the 
same time numerous other dukedoms with foreign territorial 
titles were created for the most illustrious of his marshals, 
though these carried with them no political significance. 

S41 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Fourth Coalition : The Treaty of Tilsit 

Neither Russia nor Kngland had joined Austria in the Peace 
of Presburg. There had, indeed, been pourparlers with the 
British Cabinet, which had been broken off on the death of 
Fox (September 1806), and negotiations with the Tsar, which 
also came to nothing. And now Prussia, which had hitherto 
held aloof, offended by the violation of its neutrality, by the 
formation of the Rhenish Confederation, and by Napoleon's 
high-handed disregard of its interests in treating with the 
other Powers, joined England, Russia, and Sweden in a Fourth 
Coalition. The war in Prussia was of very brief duration. 
Following his usual practice, Napoleon anticipated his enemy 
by at once taking the offensive ; the Prussian army was 
practically destroyed at Jena and Auerstadt (October 14) ; 
on the 27th the conqueror entered Berlin. But the Russian 
caQipaign which followed presented many and serious diffi- 
culties. The dangerous political state of Poland compelled 
Napoleon to proceed with great caution. The severe weather 
impeded his movements. He lost heavily in a number of 
preliminary engagements before deciding to take up his winter 
quarters before the Vistula ; and though he gained a striking 
victory at Kylau (February 8, 1807), it was a victory very 
dearly bought and, as Ney said, " sans resultat." When 
summer came, however, he was able to renew the charge with 
better hope of success, and at Friedland (June 14) he inflicted 
a crushing defeat upon the Russians and a remnant of their 
Prussian allies. Influenced in part by his realization of the 
fact that further resistance would for the time be useless, and 
in part by his growing irritation against England, Alexander I 
was now ready to come to terms ; an interview took place 
between the two Emperors on an island in the river Niemen ; 
and on July 7-9, 1807, the Peace of Tilsit was signed. This 
treaty revealed Napoleon as the arbiter of Northern Europe. 
Prussia suffered under it by the loss of nearly half its posses- 
sions, out of a portion of which a new kingdom was carved 
between the Elbe and the Rhine — the kingdom of Westphalia — 
542 



THE EMPIRE 

which was bestowed on Napoleon's youngest brother — ^the 
only one still unprovided with a crown — Jerome. Anxious, 
on the other hand, to placate Russia, Napoleon allowed the 
Tsar the privilege of seizing Finland and, if he desired, the 
Ottoman provinces on the Danube. The Treaty of Tilsit 
marks the real if not the apparent zenith of Napoleon's power. 
He was now something more than Kmperor of the French. 
He was the head of a confederation of vassal princes, many 
of whom by birth or marriage were members of his own family, 
and his grand dream of a universal empire seemed within 
measurable distance of realization. 

Napoleon's Struggle with England : The Penin- 
sular War 

There was, however, a dash of bitterness in his cup of success. 
England remained unsubdued. To attack that stubborn Power 
within its own island fastness was now impossible. He deter- 
mined, therefore, to crush it by isolating it from the rest of 
Europe. It was in Berlin in November 1806 that he inaugurated 
what is known as the Continental System, by which all states 
belonging to his empire or under his influence were to close 
their ports to British ships, all British merchandise was declared 
contraband of war, and all trade in British goods was absolutely 
prohibited. Other decrees strengthening this blockade followed 
in 1807 and 1808. Most of the European Governments were 
in fact coerced into joining the System, which in France itself 
was readily accepted because it promised an artificial stimu- 
lation of national industry. But in the sequel it proved a 
costly mistake. England was able to make effective reprisals ; 
France su:ffered more from the protective policy than her 
intended victim; and the other nations soon grew restive 
under the crippling limitations imposed upon their commerce 
and the losses which ensued. The System was, indeed, a 
powerful factor in creating a general European hostility to the 
great dictator, and in thus precipitating the disasters which 
ultimately led to his downfall. 

His lust for conquest unsatiated. Napoleon now turned his 

543 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

eyes to the south. Portugal was the only part of Western 
Europe where Knglish influence still prevailed, and though 
under his threats it consented to join the System to the extent 
of closing its ports against the British, it refused to yield to 
his further demand for the confiscation of British property 
within its territory. Upon this he entered into a treaty with 
Spain for the partition of the Portuguese monarchy, and 
Junot, invading the country, captured lyisbon without striking 
a blow (November 1807). But, as was very soon apparent, 
this was only the first step in a deep-laid scheme. England 
meanwhile had caused much indignation by the unjustifiable 
bombardment of Copenhagen (September 1807), which brought 
Denmark and even Austria. into the Blockade ; but Napoleon 
threw away the advantage which he had thus gained by two 
astonishing blunders. The Pope had refused both to join the 
System and to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples. 
Napoleon thereupon occupied Rome (April 1808) and took 
possession of the Papal States. This unscrupulous act, which 
aroused the feelings of Catholic Europe against him, was his 
first mistake. His second was fraught with far more serious 
consequences. The Spanish Court was rent with intrigues 
and quarrels. Ostensibly to assist in the adjustment of internal 
differences, he sent Murat with an army of 80,000 men into 
Spain ; then Madrid was seized (March 23) ; and by a combina- 
tion of force and perfidy the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown 
and the Spanish monarchy was handed over to Joseph Bona- 
parte, who in turn ceded the crown of Naples to Murat. The 
Spanish junta accepted this monstrous piece of jugglery. Not 
so the Spanish people, who were furious at such an outrage 
upon their independence and dignity, and too late Napoleon 
learned what it was to have, not an army, nor a Government, 
but a whole nation against him. In a few weeks the entire 
country was in revolt, and before long Portugal followed her 
neighbour by rising against the foreign tyrant. The French, 
defeated at Saragossa and Valencia, were forced to capitulate 
at Baylen (July 21), while their further reverse at the hands 
of the British under Sir Arthur Wellesley at Vimiera compelled 

544 



THE EMPIRE 

them to evacuate Portuguese territory. Napoleon himself had 
now to hasten to the scene with reinforcements, and by his 
victories at Durango, Burgos, Bspinosa, and Tudela (November 
1808) he rcrestablished his brother in Madrid, while shortly 
afterward Soult drove the British back in the north. But 
events in other parts of Europe made it impossible for 
the Emperor to continue the campaign in person, and as it 
was his successes led to no definite results. This was the 
beginning only of the disastrous Peninsular War, which was 
henceforth to divide his attention, to drain his strength, and 
to be a permanent source of embarrassment to him in his 
other operations. The treacherous seizure of Spain may, 
indeed, be regarded as the decisive turning-point in his fortunes. 
Talleyrand saw this at the time. At St Helena Napoleon him- 
self admitted it. 

Fifth Coalition : The Treaty of Schonbrunn 

The first consequence of his fatal miscalculations was soon 
apparent. While he was engaged in the south, Austria snatched 
at her chance, declared war, and was joined by England, Spain, 
and Portugal in the Fifth Coalition. Hurrying back from the 
Peninsula, Napoleon defeated the Archduke Charles at Abens- 
berg and Eckmiihl (April 1809) and entered Vienna (May 13), 
but was foiled in his attempt to cross the Danube, and at 
Aspern suffered his first important reverse (May 21 and 22). 
The victory at Wagram, however, restored his advantage 
(July 6), and Austria once more accepted peace under the 
Treaty of Schonbrunn (October 14), by which various portions 
of its territory were consigned to Bavaria, Saxony, and Russia, 
while Illyria was absorbed by France. The Napoleonic Empire 
was further enlarged by the definite annexation of the Papal 
States (May 1809). A little later, disputes having arisen 
between them over the Blockade, Napoleon compelled his 
brother lyouis to abdicate, and Holland was turned into a 
French province (1810). This, with the subsequent addition 
of Westphalia, gave him complete control of the seaboard from 
the Rhine to the Elbe, and enabled him to pursue his anti- 

2M 545 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

British policy with increased vigour. Against these successes, 
however, had to be set the unfavourable course of the campaign 
in the Peninsula, where Soult had failed to reconquer Portugal 
and Ney had been driven out of Galicia. 

Napoleon's Marriage with Marie-Louise 

Shortly after the conclusion of peace with Austria Napoleon 
took a momentous step which for some time past he had had 
in contemplation. He annulled his marriage with Josephine. 
Their union of fourteen years had been shaken by many 
storms ; there were countless infidelities on the husband's 
side ; and the record of their relations is one of perpetual 
jealousies, quarrels, and reconciliations. But it was no merely 
domestic motive that prompted him now to divorce the woman 
whom he had once loved with passionate ardour. He was 
ambitious to found a dynasty, and this ambition had been 
frustrated by the fact that his marriage had been childless. 
His 'first purpose in contracting a fresh marriage, therefore, 
was to obtain an heir to his throne. But he had also other 
ends in view. He intended that that marriage should give 
him a legitimate standing in the inner circle of European 
royalty, where, as he knew, he was still regarded as an upstart 
and an adventurer, and that furthermore it should have a 
distinct diplomatic value. There was at first some thought 
of a Russian alliance. But his choice fell finally upon Austria, 
and in March 1810 he took as his second wife the Archduchess 
Maria I^ouisa. - The marriage was not popular in France, nor 
did it lead to any permanent change in the attitude or policy 
of Austria toward him. But it gave him an heir. On March 20, 
181 1, the Empress bore him a son, to whom, in accordance 
with the tradition of the medieval Empire, he at once gave 
the title of King of Rome. 

The Napoleonic Empire 

The Napoleonic Empire had now reached its greatest extent. 
It spread on all sides far beyond the natural boundaries of 
France, and included no fewer than 130 departments. Rome 
546 



THE EMPIRE 

and Florence, Amsterdam and Hamburg were capital cities 
of French prefectures. The lUyrian provinces and the Ionian 
Isles were dependencies. The kingdoms of Naples, West- 
phalia, and_ Spain, governed by members of his family, were 
vassal states. Switzerland had submitted to his ' mediation.' 
Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and the whole Confederation 
of the Rhine were under his protectorship. But this immense 
imperial structure, imposing as it looked, had no real stability. 
It was merely an artificial aggregation, which defied alike 
geography, history, popular sentiment, and national interests, 
and was held together only by force. Already the unwieldy 
fabric, reared by the sword, began to show signs of decay 
as the grievous results of the Continental System became 
more and more apparent and commercial troubles stimulated 
political unrest. Even in France itself there were many 
evidences of growing dissatisfaction, and, as Napoleon and 
his advisers realized, the once idolized conqueror was fast 
losing his personal hold upon his subjects. With trade stagnat- 
ing under the influence of the Blockade, with financial appre- 
hension spreading among the moneyed classes, with discontent 
developing rapidly in the masses of the population, the whole 
country, now awakened from its intoxicating dream of military 
glory, began to feel acutely the terrific burdens which military 
glory imposed upon it and to murmur at incessant wars under- 
taken only to gratify one man's lust for territorial aggrandize- 
ment, and involving ever-increasing holocausts of victims. In 
these circumstances the worst sides of Napoleon's character 
came to the front. Every indication of opposition to his 
imperial will served only to make him more arrogant and 
more callous. He was determined to maintain the position 
which he had gained for himself, even though, as he said, the 
heavens might fall. '* I have made for myself an empire and 
I will keep it," he told an envoy of his brother lyucien, and 
in the spirit of that declaration he now acted in utter defiance 
of all considerations of national interest and of humanity. 
For the retention of his prestige abroad he relied upon brute 
force. At home he did his best to stifle public opinion. The 

547 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

Press was placed under the most rigorous censorship, an 
elaborate systeni of espionage was organized by the Govern- 
ment police, and swift vengeance descended upon all who 
by word or deed incurred the ruthless despot's displeasure. 

The Invasion of Russia 

The Peninsular War was now at its height,' and his settled 
conviction that the only serious factor in the stubborn resist- 
ance of the Spanish people was the British army made Napoleon 
more than ever determined not only to pursue but even to 
extend his unpopular and dangerous Blockade policy. He 
therefore called upon the Tsar to support him in increasing 
the stringency of the System. But the Tsar, alarmed by 
Napoleon's recent annexations in the north-east, irritated by 
his dealings with Poland, and now further estranged by the 
Austrian marriage, replied that while he would continue to 
fulfil Jiis engagements under the Treaty of Tilsit he could not 
accede to the further demand regarding the enforcement of 
the Blockade against neutral countries. This refusal led to 
the fatal war with Russia, upon which, curiously blind to the 
stupendous difficulties which it entailed, Napoleon entered 
with an overweening self-confidence born of almost unbroken 
success. He expected to repeat the sensational triumphs of 
a few years before and to march into Petersburg as he had 
formerly marched into Berlin and Vienna. But his pride soon 
received a fall. With an enormous army — the largest which 
had taken the field in modern times — he embarked on 
the general invasion of Russia, crossed the Niemen (June 24, 
1812), occupied Vilna (28th), and entered Smolensk (August 17). 
The Russians, retreating before him, lured him farther and 
farther on into the depths of a country which they laid waste 
as they went. At Borodino (September 7) he gained a bloody 
but indecisive victory. Moscow capitulated on September 14. 
But still, to his astonishment and chagrin, the Tsar remained 
silent. There he waited week after week in the vain hope 
of receiving overtures of peace, and then, realizing that it 
would be impossible for him to provision his troops through 

548 



THE EMPIRE 

the long winter now at hand, he was compelled to give orders 
for a general retreat (October 19). The horrors of that retreat 
have often been described and we must not linger on them 
here. Frost, famine, disease, and battle did their deadly 
work in his already depleted army, and only a straggling crowd 
of ragged and exhausted men finally made its way into Vilna. 
Napoleon himself, leaving the wreck of his forces behind him, 
hurried back to Paris, where he arrived on December 17, his 
prestige fatally shaken in the eyes of his own country and of 
all the world. 

Sixth Coalition : Abdication of Napoleon 
- There he found himself faced by grave difficulties. The 
British commander, Wellesley, now Viscount Wellington, had 
more than recovered all the ground lost in previous campaigns, 
and was now threatening the French frontier. But even more 
serious dangers elsewhere prevented him from turning his 
attention to the Peninsula. The fiasco of the Russian expedi- 
tion was the signal for a fresh coalition — the sixth — in which 
England, Prussia, the German States, Spain, Portugal, Russia, 
and Sweden were soon joined by Austria, which, in view of 
the political situation, was willing to throw all family senti- 
ments to the winds. With an army largely composed of 
young and untried conscripts Napoleon beat the allies at 
lyiitzen (May 2, 1813), at Bautzen (May 21 and 22), and at 
Dresden (August 26 and 27), but at I^eipzig (October 16-18) 
he suffered a tremendous and irreparable defeat. The armies 
of Bliicher and Schwartzenberg were now on the Rhine ; 
Wellington was on the southern borders ; and for the first 
time in his life Napoleon had to act on the defensive. At this 
critical juncture he could have saved the country by listening 
to the allies' proposals for peace. But he was not thinking 
of the country ; he was thinking of himself ; and in the mad- 
ness of his pride he refused to yield. The invasion of France 
from east and south followed with such rapidity that even 
he was taken by surprise. He put up a determined fight 
against the overwhelming odds which were now against him, 

549 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and was successful in a number of engagements. But on 
March 31, 1814, the allies entered Paris, and he was compelled 
to accept his defeat. To the last moment he hoped that 
terms might be arranged under which his crown might pass 
to his son. However, nothing but absolute abdication would 
satisfy his victorious enemies. On April 3 the Senate decreed 
his deposition ; the brother of Louis XVI^ the Count of 
Provence, was called to the vacant throne ; and the new 
order was ratified by the Powers by the first Treaty of Paris 
(May 30), which further reduced France to her pre-Revolu- 
tionary frontiers. It was recognized, of course, that Napoleon 
himself must be exiled from France, and he was granted the 
kingship of the little island of Elba, where, it was considered, 
he could still play at sovereignty without endangering the 
rest'^ of the world. 

The 'First Restoration and ' The Hundred Days ' : 
Waterloo 

The first Bourbon restoration lasted less than a year. 
Louis XVIII's proclamation and the Charter of June 4 were 
intended to conciliate public opinion by numerous concessions 
to the principles of liberty and popular government. But 
they also made it clear that he regarded himself as King by 
divine right, and that such concessions were offered only in 
accordance with his own personal will. This to begin with 
created a bad. impression. Moreover, he was followed by a 
large number of emigrant nobles and clergy who were set on 
regaining their former privileges, and under whose influence 
the weak monarch adopted a policy of intolerance against 
the Imperialists, the Republicans, and the Protestants. In 
these circumstances the new Government quickly forfeited the 
confidence of the country ; a feeling of resentment spread 
among the people ; while the army in particular was disgusted 
by the appointment to high posts of men who had only recently 
been fighting against France. Then the Congress of Vienna, 
which met (November i, 1814) with the avowed purpose of un- 
doing the work of the Revolution, was soon busy dividing among 

550 




82. NapoIvKon at St Hbi^Kna 



550 



THE EMPIRE 

the squabbling Powers the spoils of Napoleon's dismembered 
dominions, and these proceedings further exasperated the 
P'rench nation and caused a revulsion of sentiment in favour 
of the fallen despot. Napoleon in exile had been kept informed 
of the course of events on the Continent, and, aware of this 
revulsion, resolved to strike a daring blow for the recovery 
of his power. On the night of February 26, 1815, he succeeded 
in escaping from Elba, landed on March 3 near Cannes, and 
at once set out for Paris. Perils beset the earlier stages of 
his adventure ; but the army rallied to him ; his journey 
from Grenoble to Paris was a triumphal progress ; and on the 
26th he entered the capital amid scenes of frantic enthusiasm, 
lyouis XVIII fled at his approach and sought asylum in Ghent, 
while the European Governments were filled with consterna- 
tion by the sudden reappearance of the terrible Corsican upon 
the scene. At this point he had one great advantage which 
he was quick to seize : he was able to pose as the liberator 
of France from the yoke of her foreign enemies and the defender 
of her democracy against the reactionary Holy Alliance. To 
make good his position he hastily drafted a new Constitution 
embodying the democratic principles which hitherto he had 
arrogantly repudiated. But the promises of * the Hundred 
Days ' (March 20-June 28) were never to come to fulfilment. 
The Congress of Vienna at once issued a proclamation in which 
he was denounced as "an enemy and disturber of the peace 
of the world." The Coalition was revived. A concerted 
scheme of action was devised to crush him before he had the 
chance to regain his strength. Two armies were soon in the 
field : a mixed force under Wellington in Belgium and a 
Prussian force under Bliicher on the Rhine. Instantly, in 
accordance with his old tactics, he conceived the bold plan 
of throwing himself between these two armies, defeating them 
separately, and then marching into Brussels. Had his powers 
of execution been equal to his strategical skill he might even 
now have issued from the struggle victorious. But though 
his genius was still unimpaired, his old dash and fire were 
gone, and Waterloo (June 18) was the grave of all his hopes. 

SSI 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

His second abdication followed ; another Treaty of Paris was 
signed ; I^ouis XVIII returned to his capital under the protec- 
tion of Wellington ; while Napoleon was exiled to the island 
of St Helena, where he died on May 5, 1821. 

The Place of Napoleon in History 

The career of Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most amazing 
in history, and it is not surprising that a vast legend should 
have grown up about him, through the mists of which, like 
some Brocken spectre, he looms a figure of almost super- 
human proportions. It must, however, be remembered that the 
dramatic success which dazzled the world at the time and has 
long imposed upon the imaginations of men was in a measure 
due to the co-operation of circumstances. He was born into 
an ^ge which provided him with exceptional opportunities for 
the play of his powers, and but for the fact that the Revolution 
came to a head just at the moment when he himself reached 
manhood it is certain that the Corsican adventurer would have 
filled a comparatively small place in history. Yet, all allow- 
ances made, we have still to recognize to the full the peculiar 
combination of personal qualities which enabled him to carve 
his way to fortune : his iron constitution, his stupendous genius, 
his versatility, his inflexible will, his monstrous egotism, his 
fatalistic faith in himself and his star, his utter callousness, 
his supreme contempt of humanity and the laws of morality 
(which he once brutally declared were not made for him), his 
complete indifierence to everything except his own ambitions 
and interests. Great as a man Napoleon was not ; but he 
was unquestionably great as a soldier and an administrator. 
As an epoch-maker his importance is incontestable. His 
dream of empire, it is true, soon vanished, leaving nothing 
but an evil memory behind it, but many of the solid results 
of his statesmanship remain. We are not, of course, to judge 
him by his belated effort during ' the Hundred Days ' to found 
a really democratic empire. That was simply a desperate 
attempt to rally the nation to his side in his final struggle 
with his personal enemies. Yet in a large sense he was a 

552 



THE EMPIRE 

potent force in the general movement of the world toward 
democracy. A generation which witnessed the astonishing 
spectacle of a man who had risen from a sub-lieutenancy 
bowling over the ancient dynasties like so many ninepins 
and distributing crowns among the members of his own family 
necessarily had its faith in the divine right of kings very rudely 
shaken. His career of conquest was inspired only by his own 
inordinate lust for power. But it broke up the foundations 
of feudal Europe, and thus opened a new chapter in modern 
history. 1 

1 For a fuller account of Napoleon's life and a detailed analysis of his 
character I may be permitted to refer the reader to my book The Man 
Napoleon, upon which I have not hesitated to draw from time to time in 
writing the foregoing pages. 



srs 



BOOK VI 

FRANCE SINCE 1815 

CHAPTER I 

THE RESTORATION 

1815-1848 

THE history of France since 1815 properly forms the 
subject of an independent volume. But though the 
substantial part of my task is now completed, I 
pui"pose still to give a brief outline of the general course of 
events from the overthrow of the First Empire to the f ounda- 
tion^of the Third Republic. 

The Reign of Louis XVIII 

France paid heavily for the second Restoration. An enor- 
mous indemnity was exacted by the allies ; 150,000 foreign 
soldiers were quartered for a specified period upon her soil ; 
her rivals were strengthened geographically at her expense ; 
while the cession of important strategical territory exposed 
her badly on her frontiers. Such was the lamentable end of 
a quarter of a century's military glory and aggrandizement. 
Altogether the treaty which confirmed l/ouis XVIII 's position 
on the throne left the country weaker in respect of its neighbours 
and of Europe at large than it had been at any time for more 
than a hundred years. 

The domestic situation was no less unsatisfactory. lyouis, 
though a Bourbon, had learned something from recent expe- 
riences, and on the advice of wiser counsellors than those who 
had misled him only a few months before — of such men, for 
example, as I^ally-Tollendal, Talleyrand, and Chateaubriand — 
he had issued from Cambrai a proclamation in which he 
had frankly acknowledged his former errors. By this tactful 

554 



THE RESTORATION 

proceeding he had sought to gain the confidence of the general 
public. At the same time he had made a bid for the support 
of those who still held by the principles of the Revolution — 
the Liberals as they now came to be called — ^by general 
promises based on the Charter of 1814. But the Liberals, 
who, to begin with, hated the memory of the Bourbons, and 
thoroughly despised the new King as a ruler who had been 
set up by foreign Powers, were soon incensed by the vindictive 
policy of the Government toward those who had sided with, 
the late Bmperor during * the Hundred Days.* The execution 
of several famous marshals of the Empire, including Ney ; 
the banishment of other prominent persons who had been 
connected with Napoleon's final coup d'etat ; the establishment 
of cours prevotales for the punishment of political crime ; the 
massacre of Imperialists and Protestants in the south in a 
White Terror which the authorities did little to check : all 
these events quickly alienated the Republican anti-Bourbons 
and drove them into making common cause with the Bona- 
partists. On the other hand, the ' Ultras ' — ^the extreme 
Royalists and Clericals — who had returned from their second 
exile with their minds more firmly bent than ever on the 
revival of the Old Regime, were determined to annul the 
Charter which had been accepted as the basis of the Restora- 
tion. The nation was thus divided, as Louis himself said, 
into *' two peoples," and political passions ran high. In this 
difficult situation the King did his utmost to steer a middle 
course between the contending parties, and, realizing that for 
the moment his chief danger lay in the injudicious zeal of his 
rabid supporters — of those who were " plus royalistes que le 
roi " — he contrived, under the advice of his principal minister 
Decazes, and by a kind of coup d'etat, to rid himself of the 
* Ultras ' (September 18 16). After this the new machinery 
of government — composed of King, hereditary chamber, and 
elected chamber, on the English model — ^worked for a time 
smoothly enough. But the steady, though slow, progress of 
the Liberal movement, as shown in legislation, exasperated 
the ' Ultras/ and at length began to frighten the King. Then 

555 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

an event occurred which strengthened the hands of the mal- 
contents. On February 13, 1820, the Duke of Berry (second 
son of Louis' brother, the Count of Artois) was stabbed to 
death by a man named Louvel. Though the assassin per- 
sisted, even on the scaffold, in his assertion that he had no 
accomplices, the Royalists attributed his crime to the influence 
of Liberal ideas, and thus made political capital out of it. 
The King, now thoroughly alarmed, dismissed Decazes, and 
embarked upon a comprehensively reactionary policy. Under 
the ministry of Decazes' successor, Villele, a number of measures 
were introduced which struck at the root of constitutional 
government. Changes already made in the electoral system 
had greatly increased the power of the aristocracy, and now 
the liberty of the subject was curtailed, a severe censorship of 
th^ Press re-established, while the old alliance of throne and 
altar was renewed, and the growing power of the Church was 
attested by the suppression of courses by Liberal professors 
in the university and the practical transference of public 
instruction to the clergy. At the same time the invasion of 
Spain (1823), undertaken, under pressure of the fanatical 
Catholics and the Holy Alliance, to restore Ferdinand VII 
and absolutism in that country, was a further demonstration 
of the reactionary and obscurantist tendencies which were 
now in the ascendant. These tendencies were greatly stimu- 
lated and were largely guided by an association known as the 
Congregation, which after the Restoration was very active in 
the cause of the throne and the altar, and which wielded 
immense influence in the administration, the Chambers, the 
army, and the schools. But, deep as was the resentment of 
the Liberals, their constitutional power was broken, and they 
were thus reduced to secret machinations. During the last 
three years of Louis' reign there were no fewer than eight 
conspiracies against the Government. 

The Reign of Charles X 

Louis XVIII died on September 16, 1824, ^^^ was succeeded 
by his brother, the Count of Artois, under the title of Charles X, 

556 



THE RESTORATION 

A man of sixty-seven, the new King was too old as well as too 
obstinately fixed in his prejudices to adapt himself to the 
changed conditions of the time, and more even than his pre- 
decessor he exhibited the proverbial incapacity of the Bourbons 
both to forget and to learn. In the early stages of the Revolu- 
tion he had been one of the most active members of the Court 
party of reaction ; he had headed the first emigration of the 
nobility after the fall of the Bastille ; in the intrigues of the 
emigres with foreign Powers he had shown himself both foolish 
and cowardly ; and now he openly boasted that the opinions 
which he had held in 1789 were still unchanged. Already in 
the last years of lyouis' reign he had led the priests and the 
' Ultras ' in their unconstitutional policy, and though on ascend- 
ing the throne he took the oath of allegiance to the Charter 
his determination to recover the prerogatives of the old 
monarchy was soon apparent. He began by demanding from 
the Chambers an indemnity of a milliard francs for the emigres 
whose property had been confiscated during the Revolution, 
together with laws for the re-establishment of primogeniture, 
the punishment of sacrilege with death, and the further restric- 
tion of the newspaper press. Curiously enough, while the 
Chamber of Deputies slavishly acceded to all his demands the 
peers resisted his attempted encroachments upon the rights 
of the nation. At the same time the general discontent which 
his conduct aroused was increased by the ever-growing domina- 
tion of the priests, who specially hated the Charter because 
it recognized the principle of religious toleration ; and even 
the excitement caused by the part which France took, con- 
jointly with England and Russia, in the liberation of the 
Greeks from the Turks (1827-29) did not suffice to obscure 
the significance of the constitutional struggle at home. The 
elections of 1827 resulted in a substantial majority against the 
Government, and Villele was compelled to resign. A new 
ministry was then formed under a Moderate statesman, 
Martignac (1828), who began with a policy of general com- 
promise, but the concessions which he made to the I^eft in 
restoring the freedom of the Press and of university teaching 

SS7 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

and in striking a blow at the power of the Jesuits angered the 
King and the now dominant Clerical party. The ministry of 
Martignac was then replaced by one of ' Ultras,' which included 
the inconipetent Prince of Polignac, a former emigre, the 
Count of Bourmont, a traitor to Napoleon at Waterloo, and 
lya Bourdonnaye, one of the most notorious reactionaries of 
1815 (August 1829). The formation of such a Cabinet was 
a challenge to the country, and even the most moderate 
journals warned the King that he was courting disaster. But 
Charles was deaf to all advice except that tendered him by 
counsellors as stubborn and unenlightened as himself. In his 
speech from the throne he emphasized the supremacy of his 
sovereign will. To this speech a reply was made in the form 
of a remonstrance signed by 221 deputies. Charles retaliated 
by first proroguing and then dissolving the Chamber (May 16, 
1830). In the elections which followed the protesting deputies 
were all returned (June 13). Meanwhile the success of an 
expedition to Algiers, undertaken to punish an insult to the 
French consul (June-July), encouraged Charles to persist in 
the violation of his constitutional pledges, and in July he 
issued a series of ordinances restoring the censorship of the 
Press, again dissolving the Chamber, and introducing funda- 
mental changes in the electoral system. According to the 
preamble, these decrees were designed to check " the turbulent 
democracy which has invaded even our laws and tends to 
displace legitimate authority." But at this point the perverse 
King was to discover that he had at last overreached himself. 
Paris rose in arms, and at the end of three days' fighting 
(July 27-29) he was forced to abandon the struggle. After 
six years of futile effort to set back the hands of the clock 
he quitted France, to pass the short remaining term of his 
life (he died in 1836) in exile. 

The Reign of Louis-Philippe 

Charles had abdicated in favour of his grandson, the Duke 
of Bordeaux, later known as the Count of Chambord.^ But 
* Posthumous son of the murdered Duke of Berry. 

558 



THE RESTORATION 

I^rance had now had more than enough of the main Hne of 
the Bourbons and was glad to break finally with " the men 
of 1815." The Chamber of Deputies, assuming the right to 
act on behalf of the nation, accordingly turned to the younger 
branch of the family and tendered the crown to the Duke of 
Orleans. But this invitation was made contingent upon the 
condition that all claim to divine right should be waived and 
that the doctrine of sovereignty as formulated in 1789 should 
be the basis of the compact between the King and his subjects. 
This condition was accepted, and on August 9, under the 
title of I^ouis-Philippe, the Duke was proclaimed " King of 
the French by the Grace of God and the Will of the People." 
lyittle change was made in the provisions of the Charter, 
but the principle of hereditary succession in the Chamber of 
Peers was annulled, the liberty of the Press was restored, 
and Catholicism was deprived of its privileged position as the 
religion of the State, though it was still officially recognized 
as that " of the majority of the French people." At the 
same time the lowering of the property qualification for the 
Parliamentary franchise at once increased the influence of 
the middle classes. 

The eldest son of Philippe-figalite, I^ouis-Philippe as a very 
young man (he was born in 1773) had shown his sympathy 
with liberal ideas in the early days of the Revolution. He 
had been a member of the National Guard and of the Jacobin 
Club ; he had joined his father in renouncing his titles ; he 
had fought with distinction in the wars of the Republic ; but, 
alive to his danger after the defeat at Neerwinden, he, like his 
chief Dumouriez, had fled the country. He had then lived for 
a time in the United States and for fifteen years in England, 
and on the fall of Napoleon he had returned to France and 
to the possession of his great estates. His succession to the 
throne was now warmly welcomed by the moderate part of 
the nation, who regarded him as pre-eminently fitted by 
position and character to assume the headship of the State, 
and, in the words of Thiers, as the only possible safeguard 
in the circumstances "against a republic and its inevitable 

559 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

tempests." A man of much ability, he made himself generally 
popular by the grace and familiar ease of his manners, while 
his domestic virtues and simple tastes won the good opinion 
in particular of the bourgeoisie. 

The new Government had, however, to run the gauntlet 
of opposition from the irreconcilables on both sides. The 
lyCgitimists looked upon the King as a usutper, but though 
in 1832 the Duchess of Berry made a vain attempt to arouse 
Vendee in behalf of her son, their hostility was of compara- 
tively little practical importance. The Republicans, thwarted 
in their hopes of returning to the principles of 1793, were 
far more formidable. The Revolution of July had not only 
revived the democratic tradition at home, but had also helped 
to bring about a renaissance of lyiberalism in other parts of 
Europe — in Switzerland, in Germany, in Spain, in Italy, even 
in England — and the progress of events in these countries 
reacted strongly on popular sentiment in France. Moreover, 
the influence of Republican ideas over the artisan classes was 
greatly increased by the spread of the socialistic teachings of 
Saint-Simon and Fourier and the widening breach between 
capital and labour. Industrial discontent was now rife, and 
such discontent, uniting itself with political unrest, often 
assumed a directly anti-dynastic character. For many years 
there were frequent disturbances — several of them serious — 
in the streets of Paris and other cities, while Lyon was twice 
the scene of bloody insurrections (1831, 1834). A little later, 
when these popular movements had for the moment been 
checked by force, the Government had to face yet a third 
peril — that arising from the activity of the Bonapartist party. 
Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, died in 1832, and 
though he had been politically a nonentity, his death was a 
relief to the Orleanists. But it opened the way for the new 
head of the house, lyouis Bonaparte's son. Prince lyouis- 
Napoleon, who twice appeared in the role of pretender to his 
uncle's throne (1836, 1840). 

At the outset lyOuis-Philippe was practically committed to 
the ' parti du mouvement,' or Progressive party ; but little 
560 



THE RESTORATION 

by little the necessity of asserting his authority against the 
subversive forces at work about him drove him back upon the 
* parti de resistance ' and a policy of compromise. He thus 
came to identify the interests of the throne more and more 
with those of the wealthy middle classes, upon whom in the 
main he had to rely ; whence the nickname of ' Roi Citoyen/ 
and the description of his rule as that of the ' juste milieu.* 
He pleased the bourgeoisie because he had the material wel- 
fare of the country at heart, and France enjoyed remarkable 
prosperity during his reign. But such prosperity was accom- 
panied by the inevitable evils of plutocracy. The middle 
classes, now that the established franchise system gave them 
a political ascendancy, showed themselves as jealous of their 
own power and privileges as the aristocracy had been in the 
days of the Old Regime ; legislation on fiscal and social 
questions was almost entirely in their favour ; and the result 
was that the proletariat, realizing that they were practically 
ignored by the Government, which had shut them out from 
all constitutional part in public affairs, found vent for their 
vindictive feelings in perpetual agitation. Hence the organiza- 
tion of secret societies with revolutionary aims and the grow- 
ing influence of uncompromising democrats like lyouis Blanc, 
lyedru-Rollin, and I^amennais. In the conflicts which often 
ensued the authorities acted with an increasing severity, which 
in turn served only to inspire fresh opposition. 

Though himself a peace-loving king, whose purpose through- 
out was to live as much as possible on good terms with all 
his neighbours — even, it was often alleged, at the cost of his 
own and the nation's dignity — ^lyOuis-Philippe was none the 
less willing to resort to the old device of diverting popular 
attention from domestic troubles by a spirited foreign policy. 
But the conquest of Algiers and the intervention in Egypt 
in support of Mehemet Ali, though they appealed to the martial 
spirit of the country, did nothing to arrest the progress of 
internal demoralization. After the dismissal of the chauvinistic 
Thiers (October 1840) Guizot became the King's chief adviser, 
and under his influence the Government set itself obstinately 

2N S^l 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

against all demands for the correction of even the most flagrant 
abuses in the existing system. In 1842 the death of the 
Duke of Orleans as^ the result of a carriage accident removed 
the chief hope of the lyiberal party, and as it left his son, a 
child of four, heir to the throne, it also gave fresh encourage- 
ment to the lyCgitimists. At the same time the credit of the 
Government was ruined both by its utter indifference to public 
opinion and by the scandalous administrative and electoral 
corruption which now prevailed unchecked. Agitation for 
reforms became general, and when the Government persisted 
in its policy of absolute inactivity, and by means of wholesale 
bribery contrived to maintain a majority in the Chamber, the 
reformistes organized a campaign of banquets throughout the 
country for the ventilation of their views. One of these ban- 
quets was fixed to take place in the twelfth arrondissement 
of Paris on February 22, 1848. This was at the last moment 
prohibited by the authorities. Then the storm which had 
long been gathering instantly broke. On the 23rd there was 
a rising of the industrial population of the faubourgs, and even 
the National Guard welcomed the insurgents with responsive 
cries of '* Vive la Reforme ! " The Guizot Cabinet resigned. 
A new ministry was hastily summoned under Odilon Barrot, 
the most popular of the I^iberal leaders. But it was now too 
late to save the dynasty. On the 24th I/Ouis-Philippe abdicated 
in favour of his infant son, the Count of Paris, and, seeking 
safety in flight, made his way to England, where he died two 
years later (August 26, 1850). 



562 



CHAPTER II 

THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

1848-1852 

THK Revolution of February occurred so suddenly that 
it took all parties by surprise, and more than all 
perhaps the moderate reformers, who, anxious as 
they were for change, had neither foreseen nor desired the 
overthrow of the monarchy. A Provisional Government was 
hurriedly formed, which set aside the claims of the Count of 
Paris (involving as these did the serious perils of a regency), 
proclaimed a republic, and decreed the convocation of a 
Constituent Assembly, to be elected by universal suffrage, to 
settle the foundations of the new order. By thus at a single 
stroke of the pen changing the electorate from one of 220,000 
to one of over nine millions and placing the destinies of the 
country directly in the hands of the masses — a proceeding 
which aroused the misgivings of some even of the most con- 
vinced democrats — the Government gave evidence at once of 
its romantic idealism and of its profound simplicity. The 
same combination of qualities was no less glaringly shown in 
the manifesto to the Powers in which I^amartine, as Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, announced that France could no longer hold 
herself bound by the treaties of 181 5, but that " the prudence 
of the Republic is for Kurope a better and more honourable 
guarantee than the letter of treaties which have been so often 
violated or modified." 

Early Difficulties of the Republic : The Days 
OF THE Barricades 

The provinces accepted the Revolution quite peacefully, and 
in the country in general it did little to interrupt the ordinary 

563 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

course of life. In Paris, on the contrary, it was followed by 
an outburst of hostility between two contending parties which 
represented diametrically opposed tendencies in those who had 
together brought it about. On the one hand there were those 
who regarded the Revolution as a change only in the poli- 
tical system of the State and who desired to reconstruct that 
system as far as possible on the basis of existing institutions. 
On the other hand, there were the Socialists, for whom the 
political revolution was only the first step in an industrial 
revolution which should result in a complete reorganization 
of society. The dislocation of trade and commerce and the 
serious financial panic which were among the first consequences 
of the upheaval of February, with the widespread unemploy- 
ment and misery which these in turn entailed among the work- 
ing' classes, greatly aided the propaganda of the Socialist 
leaders, who succeeded in extorting from the Provisional 
Government a formal recognition of their principle of ' the 
right to work ' ; and I^ouis Blanc, whose Organisation du 
Travail (1840) had done much to popularize this principle, and 
who was now a member of the Government, was authorized 
to open in the IvUxembourg a ' Commission de Gouvernement 
pour les Travailleurs,' while at the same time Marie, the 
Minister of Public Works, began the establishment of ' Ateliers 
nationaux,' or National Workshops. But though for the 
moment the Anti-Socialists had to give way, it was not long 
before they recovered their ground. The elections for the 
Constituent Assembly in April resulted unexpectedly in a 
strong majority for the Moderate Republicans, only thirty- 
four deputes ouvriers being returned, and on May 9, the Pro- 
visional Government having resigned, the executive was 
entrusted to a Commission of Five — Arago, Garnier-Pages, 
Marie, lyamartine, and lycdru-Rollin — all of whom, in varying 
degrees, were now opposed to the Socialist programme. But 
though their hopes of realizing their ideal state b}^ peace- 
ful means were thus rudely checked, the Socialists were not 
prepared to yield without a struggle. On May 15, on pretext 
of presenting petitions in favour of Poland, an armed mob, 
564 



THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

led by Blanqui, Raspail, and Barb^s, invaded the Assembly, 
which was now in session, and, after demanding the imposition 
of an extraordinary tax on the rich, marched to the Hotel de 
Ville, wher^ they endeavoured to set up a new Government. 
The insurgents were, however, dispersed by the National 
Guard and peace was restored, but only for the moment. By 
this time the policy of ' work for all ' was proving itself a 
costly failure, and the rush of workmen from all parts of 
France to swell the ranks of the unemployed in Paris under 
the red flag of the Socialist party now constituted a serious 
danger to public order. The executive therefore decided to 
close the National Workshops; but the course which they 
adopted to compass their object was singularly injudicious : 
they decreed that all workmen should be summarily dismissed 
and that those between eighteen and twenty-five who were 
physically fit for military service should be forced to enlist 
in the army. This was on June 21. An insurrection of a 
very formidable character at once ensued. On the 23rd 
barricades were raised across the main streets of Paris and 
in the faubourgs ; on the 24th the city was declared to be in 
a state of siege ; urgent demands for the reinforcement of the 
National Guard were despatched into the departments ; the 
Five Commissioners placed their resignations in the hands of 
the Assembly, and all their executive functions were imme- 
diately transferred to General Cavaignac, the Minister for War, 
who was appointed Dictator. For four days the battle raged 
with terrible bloodshed on both sides, among the 5000 slain 
being seven generals, two deputies, and the Archbishop of 
Paris, Mgr Affre, who was shot near the Bastille in a vain 
attempt to pacify the crowd. At length Cavaignac's troops 
were victorious, but the Republic emerged badly weakened 
from the brief storm of civil war. Determined to crush the 
Socialist party once and for all, the Government deported 
several thousands of the rioters. By this severity they com- 
pleted the alienation of the working classes, who felt that 
they had been betrayed by false promises. Already they had 
exasperated the peasantry by a new land tax which they had 

565 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

hastily imposed to meet the crying needs of an empty Treasury. 
Even the bourgeoisie were discontented and alarmed by the 
commercial disasters which the Revolution of February had 
brought in its train. 

The Rise of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte 

The trend of opinion in the country was soon shown in a 
very striking way. The new Constitution, promulgated on 
November 4, 1848, provided for a Council of State to elaborate 
projects of law, but gave the actual legislative power to an 
Assembly of 750 members elected for three years by direct 
universal suffrage, and the executive power to a President 
who was to be chosen — also, by direct universal suffrage — for 
four years, and who was to nominate his own ministers, who 
woiild be Responsible to him alone. There were three candi- 
dates for the Presidency, the Socialists selecting Ivcdru-Rollin, 
the Republicans General Cavaignac, and the recently revived 
Imperialist party Prince I^ouis Bonaparte. The real contest 
was, however, between the General and the Prince, and the 
Prince was elected, in round figures, by five and a half million 
votes against a million and a half cast for his opponent. 

Charles-Ivouis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of Napoleon's 
younger brother I^ouis, was now a man of forty. Brought up 
at Arenberg, Switzerland, by his mother Hortense (Josephine's 
daughter by her first marriage with Alexandre de Beauharnais) 
and educated at the Gymnasium at Augsburg, he had early 
exhibited his taste for study and the proneness of his mind 
toward a curious kind of political mysticism. In 1830 he took 
part in the revolt of the Romagna against the rule of the Pope, 
after which he returned to Switzerland and to his life of medi- 
tation. He now also entered upon a career of authorship, 
publishing in the next few years his Reveries politiques, Projet 
de Constitution, and Considerations politiques et militaires sur 
la Suisse, besides a Manuel d'Artillerie, on the strength of 
which he was given a captain's commission in the Bernese 
army. Much brooding over the Napoleonic legend had already 
inspired him with fantastic ideas regarding the role he might 
566 



THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

yet be destined to play as the inheritor of his uncle's name 
and the representative of the great imperial traditions of his 
house. Twice, as we have noted, he had sought to turn to 
advantage the instability of I^ouis-Philippe's Government, 
once at Strassburg in 1836, and again at Boulogne in 1840 — 
the year in which the memory of the Empire was revived by 
the removal of the first Napoleon's remains from St Helena 
to their present resting-place under the great dome of the 
Hotel des Invalides. Both these attempts were grotesque 
failures which earned for their leader the reputation of a giddy 
and ineffective adventurer. He still, however, kept up his 
political propaganda through the Press, and his Idees Napo- 
Uoniennes, published in lyondon in 1839, though the rest of 
Europe refused to take it seriously, ran through numerous 
editions in France. After the fiasco at Boulogne he was cap- 
tured while endeavouring to make his way back to England, 
and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the fortress of 
Ham, in the department of the Somme, where he continued 
to write and publish, and whence in May 1846 he contrived 
to escape, seeking asylum once more in England. Many of 
the theories which he had propounded in his writings were 
well calculated, as he had intended, to appeal to the working 
classes, and thus the Revolution of February 1848 gave him 
the opportunity for which he had so long been waiting. He 
now hurried to France, where he was warmly welcomed by 
the malcontents in general, but especially by those who 
believed that the time was ripe for a Bonapartist revival. 
His election to the Constituent Assembly by four constituencies 
and to the Legislative Assembly by fiYe was a signal proof 
of his popularity and of the continued potency of the name 
of Napoleon over the imagination of a people who, despite 
the catastrophe in which it had ended, had not yet forgotten 
the glories of the Empire. His subsequent election to the 
Presidency was furthermore a protest on the part of the 
conservative middle classes against the fatal blunders of the 
men whom the Revolution had for the moment placed in 
power. The small landowners throughout the country, the 

567 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

manufacturers and tradesmen of the towns, voted for him in 
a body because to them he stood as the promise of law, order, 
settled times, the abandonment of wild socialistic dreams, the 
renaissance of material prosperity. On taking the oath of 
office the President was careful to sound the required note : 
it was his one purpose, he declared, to establish " a Government 
just and firm, animated by a sincere love of progress and neither 
reactionary nor Utopian." But, like the oath of allegiance to 
the Republic, by which they were preceded, these words were 
soon forgotten. History was now about to repeat itself. The 
Presidency was for lyouis Bonaparte, as the Consulate had 
been for his uncle, only a first step toward the realization of 
his personal ambitions. 

Ti^E Presidency of Louis Bonaparte 

The record of the next three years is one mainly of cease- 
less ^and indecisive struggles among the various factions of the 
Assembly and of the President's tortuous devices for turning 
their dissensions to his own account. The Legislative, which 
met in May 1849, though extremely heterogeneous in com- 
position, was in its totality far less liberal than the Constituent 
had been, and it soon gave evidence of a general tendency 
toward reaction. It readily endorsed the President's interven- 
tion in Italian affairs for the purpose of putting down the 
republican movement in Rome and restoring Pius IX to 
temporal power, a course which had led to an ineffective rising 
of protest under Ledru-RoUin (June 1849). ^'^ then proceeded 
to various measures which were intended to ensure order and 
fortify the authority of the executive, such as the suppression 
of political clubs and associations, which had again become 
influential, as in the days of the first Revolution, the regula- 
tion of the Press by the exaction of guarantees for good 
behaviour, the re-establishment of the educational privileges 
of the Church, and (under the law of May 31, 1850) the 
restriction of the suffrage by the practical disenfranchisement 
of three million voters belonging to the industrial classes. 
These enactments, which were chiefly directed against the 

568 



THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

Republicans, encouraged the Monarchists, who were now 
becoming increasingly active, and though the attempt which 
they made after the death of lyOuis-Philippe to fuse the interests 
of I/Cgitimists and Orleanists came to nothing, their ardour 
caused great uneasiness throughout the country. Favoured 
by these circumstances, as well as by the everlasting internal 
feuds of the Assembly, the wily President began to pose as 
the popular leader and protector of the rights and prosperity 
of the people against the factions which were bent only on 
their own selfish ends. He rightly judged that the Monarchists 
had little following among the masses and that the feelings 
of the nation might easily be aroused by a carefully prepared 
revival of the Napoleonic tradition, and accordingly he devoted 
himself to the task of educating public opinion by personal 
tours through the provinces and clever speeches skilfully 
adjusted to the varying interests of the different sections of 
the community. In October 1850, on his return from one of 
these tours, he stopped to review the troops at Satory, near 
Versailles, and in the course of the ceremony cries of " Vive 
Napoleon I '' " Vive TEmpereur ! " were raised by the regi- 
ment of cavalry. A reprimand from the commander. General 
Changarnier, followed, on the ground that soldiers under arms 
were not permitted to make any political demonstration. The 
incident, insignificant in itself, was utilized by the President 
for the purpose of dismissing Changarnier, whose sympathies 
were known to be Monarchical, and of alarming the Republicans 
by rumours of a Monarchical plot. Conflicts now arose between 
IvOuis Bonaparte and the Assembly over various questions, 
including that of a revision of the Constitution and the abroga- 
tion of the article which provided that on the completion of 
his term of office the President should not be immediately 
eligible for re-election ; and Bonaparte made a great bid for 
popular support by proposing the repeal of the electoral law 
of May 31 and the restoration of universal suffrage. This 
proposal was rejected by the Assembly, which was meanwhile 
weakened and discredited by its incessant quarrels and intrigues, 
and Bonaparte was now convinced that the time had come 

5^9 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

when he might safely attempt to make himself master of the 
situation. 

The Estaslishment of the Second Empire 

Accordingly, on the night of December 1-2, 1851, a carefully 
planned coup d'etat was carried out, and the next morning the 
inhabitants of Paris found the walls of theit city placarded 
with proclamations dissolving the Assembly, repealing the 
law of May 31, and calling upon the people to pronounce by 
plebiscite their opinions regarding a new Constitution. At the 
same time the principal party leaders in the Assembly and 
some seventy prominent Republican citizens were arrested, 
and the approaches to the Assembly itself and all the offices 
of the Republican newspapers were occupied by the military. 
In 'Paris itself resistance was organized against these mon- 
strous proceedings by a committee of which Victor Hugo was 
a leading member, but the mass of the population remained 
singularly indifferent and the attempted rising was quickly 
quelled by force. The disturbances which followed in some 
of the departments were also suppressed with the utmost 
severity, and many thousands of those who had participated 
in them, or who for any reasons were regarded as '* pernicious 
elements,'* were imprisoned, banished, or deported *' pour 
cause de surete generale." Then on December 20-21 a 
plebiscite was taken on the resolution that " the people desires 
the maintenance of the authority of I^ouis-Napoleon Bonaparte 
and delegates to him the necessary powers for the framing of 
a Constitution on the basis established in his proclamation of 
December 2." Nearly seven and a half million electors voted 
in the affirmative, only 640,000 odd in the negative ; and thus 
the nation at large acquiesced in a crime which violated all 
the President's solemn constitutional pledges, but which, 
according to his own statement, " had no other end but to 
spare France and Europe perhaps years of troubles and 
misfortunes." 

The new Constitution of January 14, 1852, prepared by 
lyouis Bonaparte himself, was in the main a reproduction of 
570 



THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

that of Year VIII, and like its prototype was designed to 
place in the hands of the chief executive officer — whose term 
of power was extended to ten years — an authority which was 
almost absolute. But, as might have been anticipated, the 
consequences of the 2nd of December were similar to those 
which had followed the i8th Brumaire. Another provincial 
tour undertaken for the further education of public opinion, 
and on his return from which he was enthusiastically wel- 
comed in Paris with shouts of '' Vive rEmpereur ! " satisfied 
the Prince President (as he was now called) that the success of 
his former appeal to the people was certain to be repeated. 
On November 7, 1852, the Senate recommended the re-establish- 
ment of the Empire ; a plebiscite on the 21st and 22nd resulted 
in what was practically a unanimous verdict in its favour ; 
and on December 2 I^ouis-Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed 
Emperor of the French under the title of Napoleon III.i 

1 In the following pages I spell Napoleon's name without the accent, as in 
the case of the first Napoleon. 



571 



CHAPTER III 

i 

THE SECOND EMPIRE 

1852-1870 

THE re-establishment of the Empire was the result of 
the combination of many causes. The dread of 
anarchy was widespread ; the country at large was 
keenly alive to the danger of Monarchist intrigues, against 
which a republic appeared to provide no efficient protection ; 
the spectre of Socialism continued to frighten the peasantry 
as \Y^11 ^s "the bourgeoisie ; the industrial masses were encou- 
raged to look for consideration from a ruler whose writings 
had shown so much sympathy with their aims ; while the 
moneyed classes, the Bourse, and the vested interests in 
general, still mindful of the financial disasters which had 
attended the Revolution of 1848, and more concerned about 
material welfare than about political forms, w^re ready to 
welcome any change which promised a Government of stability 
and order. Thus the Empire gained universal support because 
it held out different hopes to different sections of the com- 
munity, the fact that these different hopes were in many cases 
incompatible with one another being for the moment over- 
looked. Such were some of the practical forces at work in 
the great transformation scene of 1852, and to these must be 
added one of a more sentimental character — the force which 
had already helped to raise Louis Bonaparte first to the Presi- 
dency of the Republic and then to the brief dictatorship which 
had heralded his accession to the Imperial throne. '' My power 
is in an immortal name," he told I^ord Malmesbury, when that 
nobleman visited him in the fortress of Ham.^ In his public 
^ Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Ministev. 

572 



THE SECOND EMPIRE 

Speeches as President he had made frequent allusion to the 
'' great name " which he bore. It was a name, as he well 
knew, to conjure with still, and even if the Prince Consort 
was guilty of some exaggeration when he wrote to Queen 
Victoria that it was ^' the last thing left to a Frenchman's 
faith,*' ^ it gave to its possessor a unique hold upon the minds 
of his countrymen. 

The Character of Napoleon III 

The Second Kmpire was, however, a very different thing 
from the First, in part because all the conditions were different, 
in part, very obviously, because of the immeasurable difference 
in the characters of the two Emperors. vSave in their ambi- 
tions, their unscrupulousness, and their fatalistic belief in 
their destiny, there was indeed very little resemblance between 
them. With all his glaring defects, the first Napoleon was 
a man of enormous genius, dominating personality, and con- 
summate administrative powers, positive in temper, practical, 
resolute, a wonderful judge of men, and, till he was finally 
ruined by success and over-confidence, clear-headed and keen- 
sighted. The third Napoleon was not only a dwarf by com- 
parison with his " ancestor," as he was fond of calling him, 
but intellectually and morally he was cast in another mould. 
Courage and audacity he had in plenty, but he lacked the 
steadiness which comes from fixity of purpose, and was at 
once headstrong and vacillating. The habitual expression of 
his face, which was that rather of the student than of the 
man of action, and the somewhat languid look in his half- 
closed eyes, suggested a certain radical weakness in his com- 
position, and though he was undeniably clever and astute his 
doctrinaire and visionary tendencies continually militated 
against his efficiency as a statesman. In the words of de 
Tocqueville, ** his intelligence was incoherent, confused, filled 
with ill-adjusted thoughts ['' de pensees mal appareillees "], 
which he borrowed sometimes from the example of Napoleon, 
sometimes from the theories of the Socialists, sometimes even 
1 Theodore Martin, Life of the Prince Consort. 

573 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

from his recollections of England, where he had lived." Amid 
all the uncertainties of his mind, however, he held fast to the 
one idea which from early life had obsessed him — that of the 
predestined mission of his famil}^ begun by his uncle, and, 
as he was firmly convinced, to be carried forward by himself. 
This idea not only exercised a malign influence over much of 
his domestic policy, but also inspired him with a continual 
restlessness in foreign affairs and led him to perpetual plottings 
and schemings, which ended by arousing the distrust of all 
Europe. He was, moreover, unfortunate in his choice of 
confidential advisers. His wife, the Empress Eugenie, the 
daughter of a grandee of Spain, whom he married in 1853, 
gained great popularity by works of piety and charity, and 
did much to ensure the success of the Empire on the social 
side, but she was pronouncedly Clerical and Ultramontane in 
sympathies, and was thus necessarily allied with the force? 
of reaction. His chief ■■ ' imsellors and supporters — his reputed 
half-brother, the Duke of Morny,^ the Duke of Persigny, and 
the advocate Eugene Rouher — were all men who in various 
ways encouraged him in what was most imwise in his admi- 
nistration. 

Internal Policy of the Empire 

The Imperial Constitution, though of course changed some- 
what in form, did not differ materially from that of January 
1852, which liad already concentrated all the powers of the 
State in the hands of the President-Dictator. Everything 
necessary was now done not only to establish an empire 
autoritaire, with the Emperor as absolute monarch in fact if 
not in name, but also to destroy opposition by crushing public 
opinion. The Chambers were reduced to impotence. The 
newspaper press was rigorously supervised and crippled by a 
number of onerous conditions, and even books were subjected 
to censorship. National education was regulated throughout, 

^ The generally accepted statement that the Duke was the natural son of 
General de Flahaut and Queen Hortense, though not actually proved, appears 
to be well founded. 

574 




83 Napo];eon III 



574 



THE SECOND EMPIRE 

and the teaching of philosophy in the lycees prohibited. The 
right of pubHc meeting and that of free speech were suppressed. 
A surveillance of suspects was introduced, and Orsini's plot 
against the Emperor in January 1858, though purely Italian in 
origin, was made an excuse for a drastic Loi de Suretd generale, 
which in political matters did away altogether with the formality 
of trial. For the first seven years of the new regime, indeed, 
no vestige of liberty existed in France. The absolutism of 
the sovereign was complete. 

None the less the Emperor continued to pose as the repre- 
sentative of the democracy which of its free will had raised 
him to the throne, and the guardian of the interests which it 
had entrusted to his charge. Believing that a prosperous 
nation will almost certainly be a contented nation and that 
a people whose material welfare is assured will not be likely 
to trouble much about its lost political privileges, he sought 
to secure his power by a return to the utilitarian policy of 
1840. This policy he had already adopted at the time of his 
dictatorship, it had figured prominently in his programme, and 
as benevolent despot he now pursued it with such success that 
France for a time flourished greatly under his rule. Agri- 
culture was encouraged by Chambers and agricultural shows 
(cornices), as well as by the substitution of modern scientific 
methods for the antiquated processes hitherto in vogue. 
Commerce and industry were carefully fostered. The bank- 
ing system was developed and adapted to the new popular 
needs, and the Credit Foncier and Credit Mobilier were created. 
The railways of the country were extended and reorganized. 
Numerous institutions of a philanthropic character were estab- 
lished. Vast public works were undertaken ; Paris was prac- 
tically transformed under the direction of Baron Hauss- 
mann ; and many of the other great cities of the land followed 
the example of the metropolis, to the immense advantage of 
their sanitary condition and the health of their inhabitants. 
In all these ways the material interests of the country were 
engaged and satisfied ; commercial and financial enterprise 
was stimulated ; comfort and luxury increased ; and the two 

575 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

great exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, which drew enormous 
crowds of visitors to the capital, served to give a grandiose 
demonstration to the world of the nation's wealth and apparent 
prosperity. Had things really been as well with France as 
they seemed, her general condition would have been satis- 
factory indeed. 

Foreign Policy of the Empire 

At the same time, '' having," as the Prince Consort put it, 
" deprived the people of any active participation in the govern- 
ment and having reduced them to passive spectators," the 
Emperor was '' bound to keep up the spectacle," ^ and while 
his domestic policy was directed to their social well-being, his 
foreign policy provided them with the excitement of martial 
adventure. The Crimean War (1854-56), the nominal cause 
of which was the Tsar's designs upon Constantinople, had the 
advantage of bringing him into close relations with Great 
Britain, and of thus giving him a more settled position among 
the Powers. It also secured the support of all parties in the 
State, and therefore aided national consolidation. But while 
its success contributed to his prestige, it quickened his ambi- 
tions and prompted him to further interference in European 
affairs. The expedition to Italy (1859), undertaken as it 
ostensibly was to release the peninsula from the yoke of 
Austria, was indeed inspired, in part at least, by generous 
aims, but the, essential weakness of the Emperor's character 
was revealed both in its conduct and in its results. With his 
habitual rashness he plunged into the war without making 
any adequate preparations for it or pausing to calculate its 
remoter consequences, and thus committed himself to a pro- 
gramme which he soon found it impossible to carry out. In 
his proclamation of May 3 he announced his intention of making 
Italy " free from the Alps to the Adriatic." Two months 
later, alarmed by the unforeseen dangers of the Italian revolu- 
tionary movement itself and by the threatening attitude of 
Prussia on the Rhine, he suddenly abandoned an enterprise 

^ Theodore Martin, op, cit. 

576 



THE SECOND EMPIRE 

which he had scarcely begun, and came to terms with Austria 
in the preHminary agreement of Villafranca (July 9), which 
was confirmed by the Treaty of Zurich (November 10). This 
humiliating collapse of his self-imposed ' mission ' — a collapse 
which he endeavoured to excuse by reference to difficulties 
which he ought to have taken into account at the outset — 
left the Italians disappointed, their French supporters ill at 
ease, and the Italian question in a condition to become a 
fruitful source of future trouble ; while the annexation by 
France of Savoy and Nice, though accepted by a popular vote 
of their inhabitants, gave a sinister complexion to the Emperor's 
action and aroused the suspicions of Europe by suggesting a 
revival of the first Napoleon's territorial ambitions. The net 
results of the ill-advised Italian expedition were therefore 
entirely evil at home and abroad. Still worse were those 
which followed the disastrous Mexican War (1861-67). "^^^^ 
war began with a combined hostile demonstration on the part 
of France, Spain, and England to force the republic to fulfil 
its financial obligations to its creditors in these countries ; 
but misunderstandings arose between France and her allies ; 
Spain and England retired from the expedition ; and the 
Emperor, in defiance of the joint convention of the three 
Powers that there should be no interference in Mexican affairs, 
then proceeded to the accomplishment of his ulterior purpose — 
the overthrow of the republic and the establishment of an 
empire, dependent on France, of which the Archduke Maxi- 
milian of Austria (younger brother of Francis Joseph) should 
be head. In an evil hour for himself Maximilian accepted the 
nomination, and, relying implicitly upon Napoleon's pledges, 
embarked upon an enterprise for which he was soon to pay 
with his life. For here again Napoleon had been guilty of 
fatal miscalculations. The French army encountered un- 
expected trouble with the republicans under their president, 
Juarez, who, though beaten in the field, was able to fall back 
upon the harassing methods of guerrilla warfare ; the anger 
of the United States was stirred by the attempt of a European 
potentate to set up as a dictator on American soil ; the protests 

20 577 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

of President Johnson became more and more peremptory ; the 
injudicious behaviour of the Archduke himself added to the 
difficulties of the situation ; and in the end Napoleon, heedless 
of his solemn promises, recalled his army and cynically aban- 
doned Maximilian to his fate.^ The Mexican adventure, which 
in its origin was largely mixed up with the machinations of 
a group of unscrupulous financiers with whom the Duke of 
Morny was in league, had never been popular in France, where, 
indeed, it had found little support outside the Clerical party, 
and its dishonourable conclusion struck a bad blow at the 
Kmperor's now fast declining influence. 

Changes in Internal Policy after i860 

In the meantime great changes were in progress in the 
machinery of the State. After a few years of domestic order 
and general prosperity the people of the country began to 
grow restive in their subjection and to evince a desire to have 
some' voice in the management of their own affairs. Then 
came the Italian War, which gave much offence to the Clerical 
party, the chief pillar of autocracy, and the commercial treaty 
with Great Britain (January i860), which, by interfering with 
the protective system, incensed the mercantile classes. Alarmed 
by the antagonism to his rule which now became apparent. 
Napoleon realized the need of conciliating I^iberal opinion, and 
in November i860, as a first move in this direction, he granted 
to the Chambers the right to discuss the annual speech from 
the throne, and authorized the publication in the Journal 
official of full reports of all Parliamentary proceedings. The 
effect of these concessions was, however, to stimulate the 
activity of the dissidents. Republican and lyiberal, and the 
financial crisis which followed the Civil War in the United 
States, the complications which arose in connexion with the 
Polish question and the Schleswig-Holstein question, and the 
tragic fiasco in Mexico, by damaging the Government con- 

^ The unfortunate ArchduJce, who refused to leave with the French troops, 
was presently betrayed by his enemies and shot by order of a court-martial 
(June 19, 1867). 

578 



THE SECOND EMPIRE 

tributed greatly to their fast-growing power. Unable to ignore 
the pressing demands for more and more political liberty, 
backed as these were by the most unmistakable manifestations 
of the nation's sentiments, the Emperor, though repeatedly 
checked by Rouher and the reactionaries, gave way point by 
point. At length, the elections of 1869 having resulted in an 
overwhelming majority for the various parties of opposition, 
he completed the transformation of the empire autoritaire into 
an empire liberal by proclaiming the substitution of a con- 
stitutional monarchy for the system of personal government. 
This change was submitted to the people, and on the 8th of 
May 7,259,000 voted in its favour and 1,572,000 against it, 
while there were no fewer than 1,900,000 abstentions. The 
throne and its succession (his son, the Prince Imperial, was now 
a boy of thirteen) were thus assured, and Napoleon himself, 
though ill and in low spirits at the time, professed to be satisfied. 
On May 21, 1870, a reunion of the two Chambers was held in 
the Salle des fitats in the Tuileries — ^the last State function, 
as it proved, of the reign — and the Emperor, accompanied by 
his family, took his seat on the dais to receive the felicitations 
and homage of his subjects. " In supporting the Empire by 
more than seven millions of suffrages," said President Schneider, 
" France says to you : ' Sire, the country is with you ; advance 
confidently in the path of progress, and establish liberty based 
on respect for the laws and Constitution.' France places the 
cause of liberty under the protection of your dynasty." And 
the Emperor replied in the same strain : ** Who can be opposed 
to the progressive march of a dynasty founded by a great 
people in the midst of political disturbance and fortified by 
liberty ? " Those, however, who knew the reality of the 
situation could scarcely be deceived by such a polite exchange 
of high-sounding but hollow phrases. Napoleon's power was 
already crumbling, and a blow from without was soon to lay 
it in the dust. I^ess than four months after this imposing 
scene the Empire was in ruins and the Emperor himself was 
a prisoner of war. 

579 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The Franco-Prussian War 

The diplomatic origin of the terrible Franco-Prussian War, 
which was to bring about this catastrophe and to change the 
face of Europe, has to be sought in the Schleswig-Holstein 
difficulty of 1864, in which France and England alike played 
a part which redounded to the credit neither of their honour 
nor of their sagacity. Allowed a ^ree hand by these Powers, 
Prussia and Austria united to make war on Denmark for the 
possession of the Baltic Duchies ; then the two thieves fell 
out over their booty, as Bismarck had foreseen and intended 
from the first, and the war between them which followed was 
quickly ended by the decisive Prussian victory between Sadowa 
and Koniggratz (July 1866). The absorption of the Duchies, 
Hahover, a large part of Hesse, Nassau, and the free city of 
Frankfort, which was effected by the Treaty of Prague, was 
the first step in Bismarck's policy for the unification of Ger- 
many in the interests of the hegemony of Prussia. Too late 
Napoleon perceived the gravity of the situation which his own 
weakness and duplicity had helped to create. He attempted 
to restore the disturbed equilibrium by the purchase from 
Holland of the duchy of lyuxemburg, but once more his plans 
were frustrated by Bismarck. The relations of France and 
Prussia were now strained to breaking-point, and on both sides 
of the Rhine the feeling was general that war was imminent. 
Bismarck, who had everything in readiness, resolved to force 
the quarrel and precipitate a crisis while, as he well knew, 
France was still unprepared, and he found an occasion in the 
question of the succession to the vacant throne of Spain. 
This throne had been offered to a kinsman of the King of 
Prussia, Prince lycopold of Hohenzollern, and accepted by 
him with the King's consent. The proposed arrangement was, 
however, regarded as an insult by the French Government, 
which very naturally objected to the establishment of a branch 
of the Prussian dynasty on its south-west frontier. A protest 
was therefore made to the King of Prussia ; the King yielded^ 
and I^eopold withdrew from the candidature. But Napoleon 
580 



THE SECOND EMPIRE 

and his Foreign Minister, the Duke of Gramont, were not 
satisfied with their victory, and insisted that William I should 
give guarantees that at no future time should such a candida- 
ture be renewed. In taking this course they were obviously 
inviting war. But this they did of set purpose. It was 
in vain for the peace party to counsel patience and modera- 
tion ; in vain for Thiers to utter his memorable words of 
warning, '' II faut reflechir avant de prendre une decision.** 
Feeling against Prussia ran high in France ; and Napoleon 
knew it. He knew that a war with Prussia would be popular ; 
he sav/ in it the one thing needful to bolster up his tottering 
Empire ; the Empress Eugenie had set her heart upon it for 
the sake of her son, whose prospects, she believed, could be 
secured only by some striking military success.^ In these 
circumstances peace could hardly have been maintained even 
had the temper of Prussia been favourable. But still the 
Imperial Government hesitated to cast the die. Then, by a 
characteristic stroke of cunning, Bismarck contrived to entrap 
France into the declaration which he desired (July 15), and 
France plunged into war without forces in the least ade- 
quate to the occasion, without organization, without munitions, 
without allies. The issue was immediately put out of doubt. 
Weissenburg, Reichshofen, Forbach, Borny, Gravelotte, Vion- 
ville, mark the stages in the brief and unequal conflict, which 
terminated on September 1-2 at Sedan, where the Emperor, 
who had marched to the rehef of Bazaine, shut up in Metz, 
surrendered in person with his entire army of 83,000 men. 
In less than six weeks the Empire was completely overthrown ; 
the Emperor was conveyed, a prisoner, to Wilhelmshohe, where 
he was detained till the conclusion of peace ; ^ Paris was 
besieged and starved into capitulation ; and in the end France 
had to submit to the cruel and humiliating terms imposed by 
its remorseless conqueror — terms which, as every one knows, 
included the cession of Alsace and I^orraine. 

1 For the direct influence of the impress in bringing about the war see the 
Souvenirs of General du Barrail. 

2 He then joined the ex-Bmpress, who had taken refuge at Chislehurst, 
Kent, and there he died in 1873. 

581 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

The Establishment of the Third Republic 

Out of the welter which ensued emerged the Third RepubHc 
(February 1871), upon the history of which we do not propose 
here to enter. We have thus to close our long story on the 
note of disaster. In doing so, however, let us not forget that 
that disaster was not irreparable. For the great country 
whose destinies we have follov\^ed through many a terrible 
crisis in its evolution the hour of apparent prostration was in 
fact only the hour of rebirth. France once more gave magnij&- 
cent proof to the world of the sterling qualities of her democracy, 
her unimpaired vitality, her marvellous recuperative power. 
Shaken as she was, she rose from her humiliation with splendid 
cou;-age and in the sublime faith that the future was still 
hers. We know to-day how triumphantly that faith has been 
justified. 



582 



LIST OF IMPORTANT DATES 

The numbers in parentheses indicate the page in the text in which the 
subject is first dealt with 

B.C. 57-52. Caesar's conquest of Gaul (6-9). 

A.D. 451. Attila defeated by Aetius (12). 

481. Clovis becomes King of the Salian Franks (16). 

496. Clovis embraces Christianity (17). 

732. Charles Martel defeats the Arabs near Poitiers (30). 

751. End of the Merwing dynasty (31). 

771. Charlemagne becomes sole King of the Franks (34). 

800. Charlemagne crowned Emperor (37). 

843. Treaty of Verdun (49). 

987. Establishment of the Capetian dynasty (51). 
1095. Beginning of the First Crusade (80). 
1099. Capture of Jerusalem (85). 
1152. Alienor of Guyenne marries Henry II of England. Rise 

of the English power in France (loi). 
1 180-1223. Reign of Philippe- Auguste (103). 
1208. Opening of the crusade against the Albigenses (114). 
1226-70. Reign of lyouis IX (119). 
1328. Establishment of the Valois dynasty (155). 
1336. Beginning of the Hundred Years' War (158). 
1346. Battle of Crecy (160). 
1358. Revolt of the populace under Marcel (186). 
1360. Treaty of Bretigny (162). 
1415. Battle of Agincourt (169). 
1429. Relief of Orleans by Jeanne Dare (177). Coronation of 

Charles VII (178). 
1431. Jeanne Dare burnt at Rouen (181). 
1438. Promulgation of the Pragmatic Sanction (193). 

583 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 

1453. End of the Hundred Years' War (183). 
1461-83. Reign of lyouis XI (195). 
1470. Introduction of printing into France (248). 
1477. Death of Charles the Bold (206). 
1484. Meeting of the States-General (218). 
1495. Invasion of Italy by Charles VIII (224). 
1515-47. Reign of Fran9ois I (230). 

1519. Beginning of Fran9ois I's struggle with Charles V (231). 
1535. Publication of Calvin's Instituts (267). 
1544. Treaty of Crespy (237). 
1569. Assassination of Conde (274). 
1572. Massacre of St Bartholomew (277). 
1576. Formation of the I^eague (281). 
1588. Assassination of the Duke of Guise (285). 
15S9-1610. Reign of Henri IV (289). 
1590. Battle of Ivry (293). 
1593: Henri IV embraces Catholicism (302). 
1598. Edict of Nantes (307). 
1610. Assassination of Henri IV (311). 
1612-19. Regency of Marie de Medicis (314). 
1614. I^ast meeting of the States-General till the eve of the 
Revolution (318). 

1624. Richelieu becomes chief minister (326). 

1625. Huguenot rising (330). 
1628. Capture of I^a Rochelle (333). 

1635. Foundation of the Academic Fran9aise (407). 

1642. Death of Richelieu (345). 

1643. Death of lyouis XIII (345). 
1643-61. Administration of Mazarin (346). 
1648. Treaty of WestphaHa (350). 
1648-49. The First Fronde (352). 
1649-53. The Second Fronde (357). 

1659. Treaty of the Pyrenees (361). 

1661. I^ouis XIV assumes independent power (362). Ministry 

of Colbert (369). 
1672. War with Holland (376). 
1678-79. Treaty of Nimeguen (378). 
584 



IMPORTANT DATES 

1685. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (388). 

1701-14. War of the Spanish Succession (392). 

1713. Treaty of Utrecht (399). 

1715. Death of Ivouis XIV (402). 

1715-23. Regency of the Duke of Orleans (419). 

1716-20. John I^aw's ' System ' (425). 

1718-20. War with Spain (435). 

1723. lyouis XIII assumes independent power (436). 

1726-43. Ministry of Fleury (439). 

1733-35. War of the Polish Succession (441). 

1741-45. War of the Austrian Succession (442). 

1756-63. Suppression of the Parliaments (452). 

1774. Accession of lyouis XIV (455). Ministry of Turgot (458). 

1776-81. Ministry of Necker (461). 

1778-83. War with England (462). 

1783. Treaty of Versailles (462). 

1788. Assembly of Notables (485). 

1789. Assembty of the States-General (485). National Assem- 

bly (486). Fall of the Bastille (489). 

1791. Flight and arrest of Louis XVI (495). 

1792. Abolition of the monarchy (504). 

1793. Execution of the King (508). Reign of Terror (513). 

1794. Fall of Robespierre (517). 

1795. Establishment of the Directory (522). 
1799. Establishment of the Consulate (530). 
1802. Treaty of Amiens (532). 

1804. Establishment of th^ Empire (538). 

1812. Invasion of Russia (548). 

1814. Abdication of Napoleon (549). 

1815. 'The Hundred Days' (551). Waterloo (551). The 

Restoration (554). 
1830. Accession of I^ouis-Philippe (558). 
1848. Establishment of the Second Republic (563). 
1852. Establishment of the Second Empire (572). 

1870. Beginning of the Franco-Prussian War (580). 

1871. Establishment of the Third Republic (582). 

585 



INDEX 



A.ACHEN, 45, 46, 58. 

A.bbeville, 160 

A.bbeville, Treaty of, 121 n. 

A.beiard, Pierre, 136, 137 

A.bensberg, battle of, 545 

A.bercrombie, General James, 446 

A-boukir, Bay of, 527 

ALbsolutism, growth of, 126, 147-148, 
151 ; reaction against, 153-154 ; 
the history of French autocracy 
begins with I^ouis XI, 214 ; great 
development of, under Fran9ois I, 
241 ; the De la RSpuhlique of Jean 
Bodin, and other works, 254-255 ; 
Richelieu's ideal, and his work for 
it. 328, 342-343.. 344 ; I^ouis XIV's 
absolutist ideas inculcated by 
Mazarin, 363 ; lyouis XIV's con- 
ception of absolute monarch}^ 363- 
365, 367, 390 ; lyouis XIV aban- 
dons the principles of, and appeals 
to his people, 397-398 ; the reac- 
tion of, upon the literature of the 
Grand Siecle, 409, 411 ; reaction 
of, upon the art of the Grand 
Siecle, 41 1-4 12 ; science and philo- 
sophy the enemies of, 414 ; the 
Quietist controversy a phase of the 
struggle against, 418 ; the decay 
of, 470-471 ; Montesquieu's views 
on, 479 ; Bonaparte practically 
dictator under the Consulate, 530, 
531 ; development of Bonaparte's 
ab.solute power, 533 ; Charles X 
attempts to restore, 557, 558 ; the 
Constitution of the Second Bmpire 
establishes, 574-575 ; Napoleon III 
concedes constitutional govern- 
ment in place of his autocracy, 

579 
Academic Frangaise, origin and early 

work of, 407-408, 409-410 
Academy of Architecture, 412 
Academy of Music, 413 



Academy of Painting and Sculpture, 
412 

Academy of Sciences, 413 

Acadia, 445 

Acre — see Akka 

Adalbero, Bishop, 93 

Adalia, 99 

Adam de la Halle, 142 

Adda, river, 526 

Adelaide of Savoy (Marie- Adelaide), 
402 

Ad^mar de Chabannis, 60 n. 

Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, 82 

Aedui, 5 

Aegidius, Roman governor in Tour- 
nay, 15, 16 

Aetius, 12, 15 

Affre, Mgr, Archbishop of Paris, 565 

Africa, 373. 462 

Agincourt, battle of, 170, 191 

Agnadello, battle of (1509), 228 

Agnes, wife of Philippe- Auguste, 116 n. 

Agriculture, expansion of, under 
Louis XII, 229 ; disastrous condi- 
tion of, after the Wars of Religion, 
308 ; Sully frames measures for 
the improvement of, 310; helped 
by Law's ' System,^ 431 ; decay of, 
under the Old Regime, 474 ; the 
Physiocratic doctrine and, 478 ; 
developed by Bonaparte, 534 ; 
encouraged by Napoleon III, 575 

Aides, increased by Colbert, 372 

Aigues-Mortes, 127 

Aiguillon, Armand, Duke of (the 
elder), 451-452 

Aistulf, King of Lombardy, 34 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of (1668), 

375. 376 ; (1748). 444. 445. 450 
Aix-en-Provence, 4, 527. See also 

Aquae Sextiae 
Ajaccio, 524 
Akka, 100, 107, 108. See also Saint- 

Jean-d'Acre 



587 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Alais, Jean-Louis, Bishop of, 454 

Alais, Peace of, 333 

Alamans, 17, 28, 29, 31 

Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, 16, 

Alauda, Gaulish legion, 9 

Alberoni, Cardinal, 433 

Albertus Magnus, 136 

Albi, 114 n. 

Albigenses, crusade against, 11 4-1 16, 

118, 139 
Albigeois, 114 w. 
Albret, Jeanne d', 263, 264, 274, 275, 

276, 324 
Aleandro, Girolamo (Hieronymus 

Aleander), 247 
Alembert, Jean Lerond d', 479 
Alen9on, city, 197, 293 
Alen9on, county, 210 
Alengon, house of, 210 
Alen9on, Hercule-Fran9ois, Duke of, 

^80-281. See also Anjou, Hercule- 

Fran9ois, Duke of 
x\len9on, John V, Duke of, 210 
Alefvpo, 98 
Alesia, 8, 9 

Alexander the Great, 139 
Alexander I, Tsar, 542, 543, 548 
Alexander VI, Pope, 224, 226 
Alexander VII, Pope, 416, 417 
Alexandria, occupied by Bonaparte, 

527 

Alexius I, Comnenus, Byzantine Em- 
peror, 80, 82, 83 

Alexius III, AngeluS; Emperor, 112, 

113 
Alexius IV, Angelus, Emperor, 113 
Alfred the Great, 45 
Algiers, 237, 558^ 561 
Alienor, wife of Louis Vlli 92, loi- 

102, no 
Alise-Sainte-Reine, 8 n. 
Alix of Champagne, wife of Louis VII, 

104 
Allemannia, 48 
AUer, river, 35 
Alps, 34, 48, 80, 83, 224, 227, 230, 

234, 246, 259, 340, 526, 532, 538, 

576 ; Central, 5 ; Maritime, 5 
Alsace, 17, 349, 350. 377' 378. 380, 

438 ; won for France by Richelieu, 

341 ; ceded to Prussia, 581 
Alva, Fernando, Duke of, 242, 274 
Amadis de Gaule, 234 
Ambleteuse, 540 



588 



Amboise, 273 

Amboise, castle of, 225, 269 

Amboise, conspiracy of, 269 

Amboise, Edict of, 273, 274 

Amboise, Georges d', 229 

America, North, 400, 401, 444, 445, 

447, 462, 465. See also United 

States 
Ami du Peuple, L' , Marat's journal, 

502, 508, 512 
Amiens, city, 104, 306, 315 
Amiens Cathedral, 143 
Amiens, county, 104 
Amiens, Treaty of, 532, 535 
Amsterdam, 342 n., 377, 424, 547 
Amyot, Jacques, 250, 251 n. 
Anagni, 148 
Anastasius II, Pope, 20 
Ancre, Marquis of, Concini as, 315 
Angelo, St, Castle of, Rome, 235 
Angennes, Julie d', 404 
Angers, 278, 323 
Angers Cathedral, 63 
Angouleme, city, 20 
Angouleme, county, 323 
Angouleme, Charles, Count of, 287 
Angouleme, Charles^ of Orleans, Count 

of, 217, 220 
Angouleme, Fran9ois, Count of, 228, 

230. See also Fran9ois I 
Angouleme, Jean, Count of, 287 
Angouleme, Marguerite of, 239, 251, 

256 ft., 263, 266 
Anjou, 56, 92, 102, 111,121,172,210, 

281, 323 

Anjou, Charles I, Count of (King of 

Sicily), 129, 146, 147, 157, 223 
Anjou, Foulques III, Count of 

(' Nerra'), 63 
Anjou, Foulques V, Count of, 92 
Anjou, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count 

of, 92 
Anjou, Henri, Duke of (afterward 

Henri III), 274, 280. See also 

Henri III 
Anjou, Hercule-Fran9ois, Duke of, 

282, 283. See also Alen9on, Her- 
cule-Fran9ois, Duke of 

Anjou, Louis I, Duke of, 167 
Anjou, Louis, Duke of (afterward 

Louis XV), 402. See Louis XV 
Anjou, Philippe, Duke of, 393, 394, 

395. See Philip V of Spain 
Anne of Austria, 316, 362, 366, 393 ; 

the regency of, 346-360 



INDEX 



Anne of Beaujeu, 200, 210, 216, 224 ; 

the regency of, 216-223 
Anne of Brittany, 221-222, 226, 

228 n., 240 
Anne, Queen of England, 399, 40b 
Anne-Benedicte of Bourbon, 436 
Anseghis, 27, 33 
Antibes, 525 
Antilles, the, 444, 462 
Antioch, 83-84, 85, 86 
Antioch, battle of (1098), 84 
Antoine of Bourbon, 263, 264, 269, 

272, 273, 469 
Antoinette of Bourbon, 263 n. 
Aquae Sextiae, 4, 5. See also Aix-en- 

Provence 
Aquinas, Thomas, 136, 137, 138 
Aquitaine, 29, 46, 47, 61, 68, 91 
Aquitani, i 
Aquitania, 19, 20 
Aquitanians, 31 
Arabs, 29-30, 38 
Arago, Dominique-Francois, 564 
Aragon, 147, 227 
Aragon, Ferdinand II, King of — see 

Ferdinand II, E)mperor 
Aragon, Pedro III, King of, 223 n. 
Architecture, development of, in the 

Middle Ages, 143-144 ; of the 

Renaissance, 259 ; of the Grand 

Siecle, 41 1-4 12 
Arcis-sur-Aube, 504, 516 
Areola, battle of, 526 
Arelate, 13 

Arenberg, Switzerland, 566 
Argenson, Marc-Rene de Voyer, 

Marquis d', 426 
Argenson, Rene-Iyouis, Marquis d', 

434. 471 w- 
Arianism, 18 

Ariovistus, 5 

Aristotelianism, 414 

Aries, city, 4, 13 

Aries, kingdom of, 57 n. 

Aries, Conrad the Pacific, King of, 

61 
Armagnac, house of, 210 
Armagnac, Bernard VII, Count of, 

168 
Armagnac, John V, Count of, 203, 210 
Armorica, 10, 16, 20 
Army, the national, development of, 

192 ; under Francois I, 241 ; 

strengthened and reorganized by 

Richelieu, 344 



Arnauld, house of, 415 
Arnauld, Antoine, the elder, 415 ^. 
Arnauld, Antoine, the younger ('le 
grand Arnauld'), 415 w., 416, 417, 441 
Arnauld, Jacqueline-Marie, 415 
Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, 115 
Arnold, Matthew, 407 
Arnold, Dr Thomas, 76 
Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, 27, 33 
Arques, 291, 293, 294 
Arras, 142, 208, 361, 492, 515 
Arras, Treaty of (1435), 182, 198, 
208; {1482), 209, 211, 215, 221, 222 
Arrondissements , formed, 493 
Arsenal, the, Paris, 312 
Art, development of, in the Middle 
Ages, 143-144 ; of the Renais- 
sance, 259-260 ; of the Grand 
Siecle, 41 1-4 12 
Art poetique, L' , of Boileau, 409 n. 
Artevelde, Jacob van, 159 
Arthenice, 405 
Arthur, King, 139 
Arthur of Brittany, 105, no, iii n. 
Artois, 104, 208, 209, 221, 222, 230, 

233, 234, 236 
Artois, Charles- Philippe, Count of 
(afterward Charles X), 487, 488, 
536, 556. See also Charles X 
Artois, Robert III, Count of, 159 
Arverni, 6, 8 
Ascalon, 85, 100 
Aspern, battle of, 545 
Assemblee Nationale — see National 

Assembly 
Assemblee Nationale Constituante — 

see Constituent Assembly 
Assembly of Clergy, 362 
Assembly of Notables, 343, 464-465, 

466, 485 
Assignats, 494, 511, 519, 528 
Astree of d'Urf^, 406 
Ateliers nationaux, 564, 565 
Atheism, proscribed, 517 
Athelstan, King, 51 
Athis-sur-Orge, Treaty of, 151 
Attila, 12 
Aubign6, Francoise d' — see Mainte- 

non, Mme 
Aubign^, Theodore Agrippa d', 382 
Aucassin et Nicoletie, 139-140 
Auerstadt, battle of, 542 
Augsburg, 566 
Augusta Suessionum, 16 
Augusta Trevirorum, 13 

589 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Augustine, St, 44, 415 

Augustinus of Jansen, 415, 416, 417 

Augustonemetum, 13 

Augustus, Kmperor, and Gaul, 10 

Augustus II of Poland, 441, 444 n. 

Augustus, Blector of Saxony (Frede- 
rick Augustus III), 441 

Aumale, Charles II, Duke of, 293 

Aumont, Jean d', 291, 292 

Aunis, 165 

Aurillac, 197 

Ausonius, Decinius Magnus, 1 1 

Austerlitz, battle of, 541 

Austrasia, 22-23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 46 

Austrasians, 23, 27 

Austria. I. The country, 38, 228. 
II. The State, 374, 390, 433, 
435/ 542. 546 ; Marie de Medicis 
and, 315 ; Richelieu and, 339-341 ; 
the power of, broken by "the 
Thirty Years' War, 350 ; in the 
War of the Spanish Succession, 
394-399 ; in the War of the 
Polish Succession, 441-442 ; in 
the War of the Austrian Succession, 
442-444 ; in the Seven Years' 
War, 445-447 ; shares in partition 
of Poland (1772), 451 ; and the 
question of the Emigres, 500 ; war 
with, 501-532 ; cedes territory to 
France under the Treaty of Campo 
Formio, 526 ; Bonaparte and, 531- 
532 ; in the Third Coalition, 541 ; 
joins the Blockade, 544 ; in the 
Fifth Coalition, 545 ; in the Sixth 
Coalition, 549 ; Napoleon III and, 
576-577 ; war with Prussia (1866), 
580 
Austria, I^eopold V, Duke of, 106, 

109 
Austrian Committee, 500 
Autun, 30 

Autun, College of, 524 
Auvergne, 81, 91, 105, 165, 172 

Auvergne, Henri de la Tour d'. 
Viscount of Turenne — see Turenne 
Auvergne, Robert II, Count of, 80 
Auxerre, 49 

Aventures de Telemaque, 402 n. 
Avignon, 4, 149, 527 

BabEau, Albert- Ars^ne, 472 n. 
Baboeuf, Fran9ois-Noel, 528 
Bacon, Francis, 138 
Bacon, Roger 136, 138 

590 



Baden, duchy of, 536 

Baif, Jean-Antoine de, 252 

Bailli, the office , of, established by 

Philippe- Auguste, 117; reorganized 

by St Ivouis, 123 
Bailly, Jean-Sylvain, 487, 488, 489, 

490, 507, 514 
Balafre, Fran9ois le — see Guise, Fran- 

gois, Duke of 
Balagny, I^oui§ de, 204 
Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, 98 
Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, 98 
Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders 

(Baldwin I, EJmperor of Constan- 
tinople), 113 
Ballets, 412 
Balue, Jean, 212 

Banalities, in the feudal system, 74 
Bank, the, in Law's ' System,' 425-431 
Bank of France, 533 
Bank, Royal — see Banque 
Bank-notes, in I^aw's ' System,' 425- 

426, 430 ; assignats and mandats 

territoriaux, 494 and n. 
Banking system, developed under 

Napoleon III, 575 
Banque Royale, 426-431 
Barbaroux, Charles- Jean-Marie, 498, 

514 ^• 
Barbes, Armand, 565 
Barcelona, 397 
Barentin, Charles-lYOuis-Fran9ois de 

Paule de, 486 
Bardre de Vieuzac, Bertrand, 519 
Barfleur, 160 
Barnave, Antoine - Pierre - Joseph - 

Marie, 492, 494, 498, 507, 514 
Barrail, General du, 581 w. 
B arras, Paul-Fran9ois- J ean-Nicolas, 

515. 520, 523, 525, 528 
Barrot, Camille - Hyacinthe - Odilon, 

562 
Barry, Mme du, 449-450, 451, 452, 

457 and n. ; guillotined, 514 
Bartas, Guillaume de Saluste du, 253 
Barth^lemy, Fran9ois, 528 
Bartholomew, St, massacre of, 260, 

263, 277-278, 295, 309 
Basel, Treaties of (1795), 519 
Basina, 15, 25 
Basire, Claude, 498, 516 
Bassompierre, Fran9ois, 334, 336, 351 
Bastille, the, 187, 260, 321, 336, 351, 

360, 363 n., 369, 418, 421, 449, 

565 ; taking of the, 489, 494, 557 



INDEX 



Battle of the Dunes, 361 

Battle of the Herrings, 174 

Battle of the Pyramids, 527 

Battle of the Spurs (Courtrai, 1302), 

151 ; (Guinegatte, 1513). 228 
Baudricourt, Robert de, 175, 176 
Bautzen, battle of , 549 
Bavaria, 47, 349, 396, 443, 545, 547 
Bavarians, 28, 29, 31 
Bayard, Chevalier, 227, 231, 234, 

254 
Bayeux, iii, 294 
Baylen, battle of, 544 
Bayonne, 166, 274 
Bazaine, Achille, 581 
B^arn, 324, 325, 330, 388 
Beauce, 90 
Beaufort, Frangois, Duke of, 351, 

355, 356, 358 
Beaugency, Council of, 102 
Beauharnais, Alexandre, Viscount of, 

514, 525, 566 
Beaujeu, house of, 222 
Beaujeu, Anne of — see Anne 
Beaujeu, Pierre II, Count of, 210, 

212, 216, 217, 219 
Beaulieu, Peace of, 281, 282 
Beauvais, 204 
feeauvais Cathedral, 143 
Beauvais, Augustin, Bishop of, 351 
Beauvais, Pierre, Bishop of, 180, 

181 
Becket, Thomas a, 102 
' Bed of justice,' the, 363, 423, 466, 

487 
Bedford^ John of Lancaster, Duke of, 

171, 173, 174, 177, 178, 182 
Begga, 27. 33 
Belgae, i, 2, 6 
\ Belgium, 431, 5 10, 517, 551 
Bellay, Joachim du, 252 
Belle - Isle, Charles - I^ouis - Auguste 

Fouquet, Duke of, 443 
Belleau, R6my, 252 
B^mont, Charles, iii n. 
Benedict XI, Pope, 148 
Beneficia, 67 

Benevento, province, 541 
Berg, Grand Duchy of, 541 
Berger extravagant of Charles Sorel, 

406 
Bergerac, Treaty of, 282, 283 
Berlin, Napoleon in, 542, 543, 548 
Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste-Jules, 541 
Bernard of Clairvaux, 98, 1 00-101 



Berne, 566 

Bernhard, son of Pippin of Italy, 46, 

48, 55 
Bernier, Adhelm, 219 w. 
Berry, 81, 172, 210, 279 
Berry, Charles, Duke of (i), 198, 199, 

200, 202-203, 210 
Berry, Charles, Duke of {2), 403 
Berry, Charles-Ferdinand, Duke of, 

469, 556, 558 «. 
Berry, John, Duke of, 167 
Berry, Marie-Caroline, Duchess of, 

560 
Bertha, wife of Robert II, 61 
Berthier, Pierre- Alexandre, 541 
Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of, 

435. 441. 442 
B^thune, Maximilien de — see Sully, 

Duke of 
B^ze, or Beza, Theodore, 271 
B^ziers, 4, H5 
Bible, 29, 141, 418 n. 
Bibliothdque Royale (Biblioth^que 

Nationale), 249 
Billaud - Varennes, J acques - Nicolas, 

508, 514, 519 
Biron, Armand de Gontaut, Baron 

of, 299, 300, 311 
Biron, Charles de Gontaut, Duke of, 

3" 

Bismarck, Prince von, 580, 581 

Bivar, Ruy Diaz de (the Cid), 335 «. 

Black Death, in France, 185 

Black Prince, the, 160, 162, 164-165, 
191 

Blanc, lyouis, 561, 564 

Blanche of Artois, 146 

Blanche of Castile, 1 19-120, 127, 128 

Blancmesnil (or Novion), Nicolas 
Potier de, 354, 355 

Blanqui, Louis- Auguste, 565 

Bleneau, battle of, 359 

Blenheim, battle of, 396 

Blockade, the (the Continental Sys- 
tem), 543-544> 545, 547. 548 

Blois, city, 227, 259, 282, 285, 323, 
338 

Blois, county, 227 

Blois, ]Stienne, Count of, 83 

Blois, Kudes I, Count of, 61 

Blois, !Eudes II, Count of, 63 

Blois, Ivouis, Count of, 113 

Blondel de Nesle, 139 

Bliicher, Gebhardt Leberecht von, 
549, 551 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Bodel, Jehan, 139 
Bodin, Jean, 254 
Bohemia, 443, 444 
Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 253, 376 

n., 406 n., 409, 410 
Boisrobert, Abbe Fran9ois le Metel 

de, 407 
Bolingbroke, Henry, Viscount, 399, 

400 
Bonaparte, house of, 538 
Bonaparte, Caroline, 541 
Bonaparte, Prince Charles-I<ouis- 

Napoleon, 560, 566-571, 572-573 ; 

becomes Napoleon III, 571-572. 

See Napoleon III 
Bonaparte, l^lisa, 541 
Bonaparte, Jerome, 543 
Bonaparte, Joseph, 538, 539, 541, 

544. 545 
Bonaparte, Louis, 538, 539, 541,-545, 

560, 566 
Buonaparte, Ivucien, 547 
Bonaparte, Napoleon — see Napoleon 
Bonaparte, Pauline, 541 
Bonapartists, 555, 560 
Boniface VIII, Pope, iign., 148, 150 
Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, 31 
Book of Discipline of 1559, 268 
Bordeaux, 11, 29, 120, 162, 164, 166, 

183, 197, 214, 260, 278, 509, 512, 

515 
Bordeaux, Parliament of, 197, 214 
Bordeaux, Henri, Duke of — see Cham- 

bord. Count of 
Borny, battle of, 581 
Borodino, battle of, 548 
Bossuet, Jacques-B^nigne, 384, 386, 

388, 389, 418, 479 
Bouillon, Frederic-Maurice de la 

Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of, 337, 

338, 355. 358 
Bouillon, Henri de la Tour d'Au- 
vergne, Duke of, 317, 321 
BouUiau, Ismael, 414 
Boulogne, 242, 244 n., 535, 540. 541, 

567 
Boulogne, Renaud, Count of, iii 
Boulogne, Philippe, Count of, 120 
Bourbon, duchy of, 210 
Bourbon, house of, 263, 264, 291, 

350, 395, 400, 401, 446, 469, 536, 

544, 550, 555, 557, 559 
Bourbon, Anne, Duchess of, 221, 224. 

See Anne of Beaujeu 
Bourbon, Anne-Ben^dicte of, 436 

592 



Bourbon, Antoine of, 263, 264, 269, 
272, 273, 469 

Bourbon, Charles, Cardinal of, 283, 
285, 290-291, 293, 296, 469 ; pro- 
claimed King as Charles X, 290 

Bourbon, Charles, Duke of (Constable 
Bourbon), 234, 235 

Bourbon, Jean II, Duke of, 198, 216, 
217, 219, 220, 221 

Bourbon, I/Ouis-Henri, Duke of, 428, 

438-439. 440 
Bourbonnais, 172 
Bourdaloue, Ivouis, 384 
Bourg, Anne du, 268 
Bourgeoisie, rise of, 87, 94, 135, 190- 
191 ; rendered impotent, 126 ; the 
medieval literature of, 141 ; the 
rise of, and Gothic architecture, 
144 ; emergence of the Third 
Instate as a political force, 150 ; 
Philippe V grants letters of nobility 
to burghers, 154 ; lyouis XI' s 
familiar intercourse with, 212, 214 ; 
Ivouis XIV and, 410, 422 ; bour- 
geois reaction against classicism in 
literature, 410 ; Philippe of Orleans 
attempts to destroy the political 
influence of, 422 ; growth in in- 
fluence and prestige of, 471-473 ; 
buy privileges, 476 ; influence of, 
increased by the lowering of the 
qualification for the franchise, 559, 
561 ; favour Ivouis- Philippe, 560, 
561 ; under the Second Republic, 
566 ; support I^ouis-Napoleon. 567- 
568 ; mentioned, 319, 572. See 
also Third Kstate 

Bourges, 172, 173, 190, 278, 305 

Bourges Cathedral, 143 

Bourges, Pierre, Archbishop of, 97 

Bourges, Renaud, Archbishop of, 
302-303 

Bourmont, Ivouis - Auguste - Victor, 
Count of, 558 

Bourrienne, Ivouis- Antoine Fauvelet 
de, 524 

Bourse, the, 428, 572 

Bouteville, Fran9ois de Montmorency, 
Count of, 335 

Bouvines, battle of, 111-112 

Boyne, battle of the, 391 

Brabant, 397 

Brabant, Henri, Duke of, iii 

Brachet, A., 49 n. 

Brandenburg, the electorate, 377, 390 



INDEX 



Brantome, Pierre de Bourdeilles, 

Seigneur de, 217 n.. 254 
Brenneville, battle of, 91 
Brennus, 2 
Bresse, 243 
Brest, 166 / 
Breteuil, 161 
Breteuil, battle of, 91 
Br6tigny, Treaty of, 162, 163, 169 
Bretons, 64, 93 
Br^z6, Jacques de, 213 
Briare, Canal of, 310 
Briconnet, Guillaume, Bishop of 

Meaux, 266 
Brienne, 524 

Brienne, I/omenie de, 465, 467 
Brissac, Charles de Cosse, Duke of, 

305 

Brisson, Barnabe, 300 

Brissot, Jean-Pierre, 498 

Brissotins, 498, 499, 508 

Britain, Caesar's invasions of, 6 

Britain, Great, 445, 447, 462, 532, 
576 ; commercial treaty with 
(i860), 578. See also ::^ngland 

Brittany, 56, no, 159, 160, 161, 163, 
164, 183, 201, 210, 218, 221, 222, 
226, 227, 306, 435, 452, 467 

Brittany, house of, 210 

Brittany, Anne, Duchess of — see 
Anne 

Brittany, Fran9ois I, Duke of, 183 

Brittany, Fran9ois II, Duke of, 198, 
199, 201, 202, 204, 220, 221 

Brittany, l/ouis, Duke of, 402 

Brittany, Pierre de Dreux, Duke of, 
120 

Brive-ia-Gaillarde, 432 

Broce, Pierre de la, 146 

Broussel, Pierre, 354-355 

Bruant, lyib^ral, 412 

Bruges, 397 

Bruhl, 359 

Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 245, 247 n. 

Brunhilda, wife of Sigebert of Metz, 
22, 23 

Brunswick, Charles William Ferdi- 
nand, Duke of, 503 

Brussels, 195, 336, 431, 495 w., 499, 

551 
Buckingham, George Villiers, first 

Duke of, 331-332, 333 
Bud6, Guillaume (Budaeus), 248, 249 
BuUant, Jean, 259 
Buonaparte — see Bonaparte 



Burckhardt, J,, 257 
Burdegala, 11. See Bordeaux 
Bureaux d' esprit, 405 
Burgos, battle of, 545 
Burgundians, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21 
Burgundy, 20, 28, 29, 30, 46, 50. 56, 

62, 68, 82, 182, 198, 201, 202, 203, 

208, 209, 218, 222, 227, 232, 234, 

236, 306, 361 ; Cisjuran and Trans- 

juran, 50 n. 
Burgundy, house of, 202, 208, 287 
Burgundy, Charles the Bold, Duke 

of, 201, 202, 203-207, 208, 210, 

221 
Burgundy, Hugh III, Duke of, 108 
Burgundy, Hugh IV, Duke of, 120 
Burgundy, John the Fearless, Duke 

of, 167-168, 169, 170 
Burgundy, lyouis, Duke of, 393, 401- 

402, 469 
Burgundy, Philip the Bold, Duke of 

167, 287 
Burgundy, Philip the Good, Duke of, 

170, 171, 173, 179, 182, 195-196, 

198 
Buzot, Fran9ois - Nicolas - I^eonard, 

514 w. 
Byng, Admiral George, 435 
Byng, Admiral John, 446 



Caboche, Jean-Simonette, 187 

Cabochiens, 187 

Cadoudal, Georges, 535, 536 

Caen, in, 160, 199, 512, 513 

Caesar — see Julius 

Cairo, 127 ; Napoleon in, 527 

Cajetano, Knrico, 295 

Calais, besieged by Edward III and 
gained by the English, 160-161 ; 
confirmed to Edward, 162 ; remains 
in English hands after the truce of 
1380, 166 ; the last French posses- 
sion left to England after the 
Hundred Years' War, 183 ; cap- 
tured by the Duke of Guise and 
lost to England, 24^, 244 ; men- 
tioned, 169 

Calas, Jean, 452 n. 

Calendar, the Republican 515 

Calixtus II, Pope, 91, 92 

Calonne, Charles-Alexandre de, 464- 

465 
Calvin, John, 254, 267-268, 273 
Calvinism, 255, 258, 416 



2P 



593 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Cambaceres, Jean- Jacques R^gis de, 

531, 539 

Cambert, Robert, 413 

Cambrai, 15, 19, 378, 554 

Cambrai, Guillaume Dubois, Arch- 
bishop of, 432-434 

Cambrai, I^eague of, 228 

Cambrai, Peace of, 236 

Camisards, 389 

Campo Formio, Treaty of, 526, 532 

Campra, Andre, 413 

Canada, 444, 446 

Canal du Midi, 373 

Canals, system of, planned under 
Sully, 310 

Cannes, 551 

Capetian dynasty, 52, 57, 68 n., 112, 
117 ; end of the dynasty, 153- 
156 ; table of the dynasty, 157. 

Capitation, tax, 475, 476 n. 

Capitularies of Charlemagne, 40-41, 
^2 

Caractires of I^a Bruyere, 410 

Carcassonne, 29 

Cardiff Castle, 91 

Caribert I, King of Paris, 25 

Carlo vingians — see Karlings 

Carlyle, Thomas, 408 n. 

Carnot, I/azare - Nicolas - Marguerite, 
523, 525, 528, 537 

Carrier, Jean-Baptiste, 515 

Cartesianism, 414 

Casale, 360, 380 

Cassandre of Iva Calprenede, 406 

Cassel, 378 

Cassini, Giovanni Domenico, 414 

Castelnau, Pierre de, 114 

Castelnaudary, 336 

Castile, 227 

Castles, demolished by Charles V, 
192 

Catalaunian Plain, 12 

Cateau-Cambresis, Treaty of, 243, 

307 

Catheliueau, Jacques, 513 

Catherine of Aragon, 236 

Catherine of Prance, wife of Henry V 
of EJugland, 170, 171 

Catherine de Medicis, 236, 259, 260, 
261, 264-265, 277, 278, 279, 281, 
284, 285 ; character, 265 ; Regency 
of, 269-276 ; controls affairs under 
Henri HI, 280 ; death, 286 

Catherine, St, 175 

Catholic lycague — see I<eague 

594 



Catholicism, 265, 390 ; deprived of 
its position as State religion, 559. 
See under Church and Reforma- 
tion 

Catinat, Nicolas de, 391, 395 

Caudebec, 300 

Cavaignac, IvOuis-!Eugene, 565, 566 

Cayenne, 519, 535 

Cayet, Pierre- Victor-Palma, 303 n. 

Cazales, J acqiies- Antoine-Marie de, 
492 

Cellamare, Prince of, 436 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 260 

Celtae, i, 2 

Censorship of books, under the 
Second E)mpire, 574 

Cent Nouvelles nouvelles, 215 

Centre, the, in the I,egislative As- 
sembly, 498 ; in the National 
Convention, 506, 518 

Cerdana, 210 

Ceiisola, battle of, 237 

Cervantes, 406 

Cevennes, the, 8, 388, 389, 395 

Chabot, Fran9ois, 498, 516 

Chalais, Henri de Talleyrand, Count 

oi, 334 

Chalbns-sur-Marne, 12, 178, 187 

Chains, castle of, no 

Chamber of Deputies, 557, 562 ; 
Charles X and, 558 ; offers the 
crown to lyouis- Philippe, 559 

Chamber of Justice, 423 

Chamber of Peers, 165 ; hereditary 
succession in, annulled, 559 

Chambers, the, 555, 556, 557 ; ren- 
dered impotent under the Constitu- 
tion of the Second Empire, 574 ; 
Napoleon Ill's concession to, 578 ; 
the reimion of 1870, 579 

Chambord, 259 

Chambord, Henri-Charles-Ferdinand- 
Marie-Dieudonn6 d'Artois, Count 
oi, 469, 558, 560 

Chambre des Comptes, instituted 
by Philippe IV, 151 ; mentioned, 

353 
Champ de Mars, Paris, 495 
Champagne, 97, 124 n., 147, 174, 

202, 203, 237, 291, 306, 340, 348, 

378 
Champagne, Thibaut II, Count of, 97 
Champagne, Thibaut IV, Count of, 

113, 120, 139 
Champlain, Samuel de, 310 



^1. 



INDEX 



Chancelier, appointed by Philippe- 
Auguste, 117; l/ouis XIV's, 368, 
422 

Chancellerie, department of Govern- 
ment instituted by Philippe IV, 

151 
Changarnier, Nicolas- Anne-Theodule, 

569 
Chanson de Roland, 38 
Chansons de gestes. 139 
Chanteloup, 451 
Chapelain, Jean, 409 
Charenton, 357 
Charlemagne, 24, 28 n., 33, 46, 50, 

52, 53> 55, 56, 58, 60, 68, 69, 116, 
139. 158, 223, 541 ; ancestry, 27 ; 
becomes King of the Franks, 34 ; 
wars with the Saxons, lyombards, 
and Saracens, 35-38 ; zeal for 
Christianity, 35, 41 ; proclaimed 
Kmperor by Pope Leo III, 37 ; 
extent of his Empire, 38 ; as ad- 
ministrator, 38-43 ; and the Church 
41-42 ; and education, 42-43 ; and 
music, 43 ; personal characteristics 
and character, 44-45 ; death, 45 ; 
dissolution of his Empire, 50, 53- 
56 

Charleroi, 396 

Charles II of France (' le Chauve ' ) , 

47-48, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56 n.. 67, 

68 
Charles le Gros, 50, 53, 55 
Charles III (' le Simple'), 50, 51, 52, 

53. 55 

Charles IV (' le Bel'), 153, 154, 155, 

156, 157 
Charles V (' le Sage'), 163-166, 167, 

185, 192, 215, 259, 287. See also 

Charles, Dauphin 
Charles VI (' le Bien-aim^'), 167- 

171, 190, 192, 230, 287 
Charles VII (' le Victorieux '), 172- 

183, 187, 190, 191, 192, 193. 194- 

195. 196, 198, 200, 287. See also 

Charles, Dauphin 
Charles VIII, 210, 216-225, 226, 227, 

229, 240, 247, 249, 287 
Charles IX, 261, 262, 269, 27T, 275, 

276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 287 
Charles X, 469, 556-558. See also 

Artois, Charles- Philippe, Count of 
Charles V, Emperor, 227, 228, 230, 

231, 244 ; and Frangois I, 232- 

238 ; Henri II and, 242 



Charles VI, Kmperor, 393, 399, 400, 
442. See also Charles, Archduke of 
Austria 

Charles I of England, 330, 331, 332, 
469 

Charles II of England, 376, 378 

Charles II of Spain, 392, 393, 394, 

395 

Charles, Dauphin (afterward Charles 
V), 185-186, 188, 190. See also 
Charles V 

Charles, Dauphin (afterward Charles 
VII), 170, 171, 172. See also 
Charles VII 

Charles, Archduke of Austria (after- 
ward Emperor Charles VI), 394, 
397. 398, 399. See also Charles VI, 
Em.peror 

Charles, Archduke of Austria, 545 

Charles I, Count of Anjou (King 
of Sicily), 129, T46, 147, 157, 

223 
Charles of France, Duke of Berry (i), 

198, 199, 200, 202-203, 210 
Charles of France, Duke of Berry (2), 

393 
Charles-Ferdinand of Bourbon, Duke 

of Berry, 469, 556, 558 n. 

Charles of Blois, 159 

Charles the -Bold, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 201, 202, 203-207, 208, 
210, 221 

Charles le Bon, Count of Flanders, 
92 

Charles, Duke of lyorraine, 51, 55, 60, 
62 

Charles II, Duke of lyorraine, 293, 
306 

Charles III, Duke of lyorraine, 

336 
Charles III, Count of Maine, 210 
Charles Martel, 28-31, 32, 33, 34 
Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre, 

157, 161, 163, 164, 186 
Charles, Count of Valois, 156, 157, 

287 
Charles, son of Charlemagne, 46, 55 
Charolais, 230 
Charolais, Charles, Count of, 198, 199, 

200, 201 
Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, 413 
Charter of 1814, the, 550, 555, 557, 

559 
Charton, President of the Parliament 
of Paris, 354 

595 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Chartres, 162, 182, 299, 300 

Chartres Cathedral, 143, 305 

Chartres, Philippe, Duke of, 432. 
See Orleans, Philippe II, Duke 
of 

Chateau Gaillard, no, in 

Chateaubriand, Francois- Rene, Vis- 
count of, 554 

Chateaubriant, Frangoise, Countess 
of, 241 

Chateauneuf, Henri, Marquis of, 356 

Chatillon — see Coligny 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 140 

Chaulnes, Honors d' Albert, Duke of, 

323 
Chaumette, Pierre-Gaspard, 516 
Chavigny, ly^on. Count of, 356 
Ch^nier, Andre-Marie de, 514 
Cherasco, armistice of, 526 
Cherbourg, 160, 166, 183 
Cheruel, Pierre- Adolphe, 347 w. 
Chevalier de Fauhlas, he, 498 
Chevreuse, Marie de Rohan, Duchess 

oi 351 

Child^bert I, King of Paris, 20, 21, 

25 
Childebert II, King of Austrasia and 

of Burgundy, 25 
Childeric I, King of the Franks, 15-16, 

25 

Childeric III, 24, 31 

Chilperic I, King of »Soissons and of 
Neustria, 21-22, 25 

Chinon, 105, 176 

Chislehurst, 581 w. 

Chivalry, 66, 74-76 

Chlodion, or Hlodion, King of the 
Franks, 15 

Choiseul, !Stienne-Fran9ois, Duke of, 
450-451, 452, 462 

Chotusitz, battle of, 443 

Chouans, 534 

Christianity, the beginnings of, in 
Gaul, 13 ; the Franks and, 13, 16- 
18, 32 ; among the Frisians, 28 ; 
Charlemagne's zeal for, 35, 41 ; 
medieval, and humanity, 133 ; 
abolished by the National Conven- 
tion, 515 

Church, the early, 13 ; and the 
Franks, 16-18, 32-34 ; Clovis and, 
17-18 ; Charles Martel and, 30 ; 
Charlemagne and, 41-42 ; I^ouis I 
and, 46-47 ; moves agaiUvSt the 
practice of private war among the 



nobles, 65-66 ; and the feudal 
system, 71-72 ; chivalry and, 76 ; 
and the First Crusade, 78-81 ; 
gain in influence of, as a conse- 
quence of the Crusades, 87 ; op- 
pOvSes the communal movement, 
95 ; lyouis VII and, 97 ; and the 
Second Crusade, 98 ; Philippe- 
Auguste and, 116; Philippe III 
and, 145-146 ^ Philippe IV and, 
148-149 ; Charles IV and, 154 ; 
Charles VII and, 193 ; the Con- 
cordat of 1 5 16, 231 ; Francois I 
and, 231, 239-240, 241 ; the Refor- 
mation and the Wars of Religion, 
261-308 ; Henri IV's struggle with 
the League, 290-306 ; Henri IV 
embraces Catholicism, 302-304 ; 
the Kdict of Nantes, 307-308 ; the 
Ultramontane party and the Gal- 
lican Church, 318 ; Louis XIII 
and, 324, 325 ; the Huguenots 
attempt to divide the State, 324- 
325 ; Richelieu and the Hugue- 
nots, 328, 329-333, 339, 340, 342. 
343 ; Louis XIV and, 385-386 ; 
Louis XIV and the Huguenots, 
386-390 ; Revocation of the Kdict 
of Nantes, 388-390 ; Jansenism, 
414-418, 440-441 ; Quietism, 41S ; 
persecution of the Protestants 
under the Duke of Bourbon 439 ; 
Voltaire's antagonism to, 481 ; 
State control of, established by the 
Constitution of 1791, and Church 
property appropriated, 493, 494 n. ; 
re-established by Bonaparte, 534 ; 
growth in power of, under Louis 
XVIII, 556 ; Catholicism deprived 
of its position as vState religion, 
559 ; educational privileges of, 
restored, 568 

Cicero, 247 n., 250 

Cid, Le, Corneille's, 335 n., 408 

Cimbri, 5 

Cinq-Mars, Henri Coiffier de Ruz6, 
Marquis of, 337-338 

Cisalpine Gaul — see Gallia Cisalpina 

Cisalpine Republic, 535 

Cistercian order, 415 

City of God, Augustine's, 44 

Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 495, 

499 
Civil War, American, 578 
Civilis, Claudius, 10 



596 



INDEX 



Clagn5^ 381 

Classicism, 404, 407, 409-411, 413, 

414 
Claude of I^orraine, first Duke of 

Guise, 244 n. 
Claude, daughter of I^ouis XII, 227 
CUlie of Mile de Scudery, 406 
Clement V, Pope, 148-149 
Clement YII, Pope, 235, 236, 267 
Clement VIII, Pope, 306 
Clement IX, Pope, 417 
Clement XI, Pope, 417 
Clement, Jacques, 286-288, 289 
Cleopdtre of Jodelle, 253 
Cleopatre of lya Calprenede, 406 
Clergy, supporters of autocracy and 
the Old Regime, 471-472 ; exempt 
from many taxes, 476 ; in the 
States- General of 1789, 485, 486, 
488 ; the I/egislative Assembly and, 
499, 500, 502 ; persecuted by the 
Directory, 528 ; public instruction 
practically in charge of, under 
Louis ^ XVIII, 556 ; growth in 
power of, under Charles X, 557 
Clerical party, 555, 558, 574, 578 
Clermont, Council of (1095), 80, 

81 
Clermont-Ferrand, 13, 80 
Clermont-Tonnerre, Stanislas, Count 

of, 492 
Cleves, duchy of, 311, 315 
Clive, Lord Robert, 444 
Cloderic, 19 
Clodomer, King of Orleans, 20, 21, 

25 
Cloots, Anacharsis, 508, 516 
Clotaire I, King of Soissons, 20, 21, 

25 
Clotaire II, King of the Franks, 22 
Clothildis, or Clotilda, 17 
Clovis, or Hlodowig, 16-20, 25, 31, 

58 
Clubs, in the Revolutionary period, 

494 
Clugny de Nuis, Jean-Btienne-Ber- 

nard, 461 
Ciuniac Revival, 66, 78 
Clusium, 2, 3 
Coblenz, 499 
Cocherel, battle of, 164 
Code Civil, or Code Napoleon, 534 
Cceur, Jacques, 173, 190-191, 195 
Cognac, 275 
Coictier, Jacques, 211, 217 



Coinage, Louis IX' s reforms in, 122- 
123 ; tampered with, by Philippe 

IV, 152 ; the right of, reasserted 
by the nobles, 153 ; Philippe V 
regulates, 154 ; debased by Charles 

V, 154 ; popular discontent with 
alterations in the value of the 
currency, 188 ; the feudal nobility 
deprived of the right of coinage, 
192 ; the value of the currency 
lowered, 423 ; Law's ' System ' 
and the currency, 425, 426, 427; 
the Constitution of 1791 and the 
currency, 494 ; the National Con- 
vention protects the currency, 
512 

Colasse, Pascal, 413 

Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 369-374, 376, 

380-381, 386, 391, 396 
Coligny, Fran9ois de, 299 and n. 
Coligny, Gaspard de. Seigneur de 

Chatillon, 264 
Coligny, Gaspard de. Seigneur de 

Chatillon (Admiral Coligny), 264, 

270, 272, 273, 274-277, 279, 299 

and n. 
College de France, founded by 

Frangois I, 249 
CoUot-d'Herbois, Jean-Marie, 508, 514, 

515, 519 

Cologne, 15, 17 n., 82, 345, 359 

Cologne, Elector of, 361 

Colonia Agrippinensis, 15 

Colonization, fostered by Henri IV, 
310 ; fostered by Richelieu, 344 ; 
encouraged by Colbert, 373 ; Law's 
' System ' and, 426-427 ; growth 
of France's colonies, 444 ; France's 
colonial development crippled by 
the Seven Years' War, 447 ; Bona- 
parte and, 535 

Comines, Philippe de, 200, 204, 211, 
212 n., 214, 224, 225, 247 

Commendation, 68, 69 

Commentaires of de Montluc, 253 

Commentaries of Caesar, 6 and n., 
8 and n., 14 n. 

Commerce, benefited by the Crusades, 
87 ; growth of, 97 ; Louis IX and, 
122 ; the development of, and the 
Renaissance, 134 ; encouraged by 
Louis XI, 215 ; growth of, under 
Louis XII, 229 ; impaired by the 
Wars of Religion, 308 ; Sully's 
unsympathetic attitude to, 310 ; 

S97 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



encouraged by Henri IV, 310 ; 
encouraged by Richelieu, 344 ; 
adversely affected by the War of 
the Spanish Succession, 401 ; Ivaw's 
' System ' and, 425, 426-427, 431 ; 
crippled by the Seven Years' War, 
447 ; fostered by Napoleon III, 
575 ; the commercial treaty of i860 
with Great Britain, 578 
Committee of General Security, 511 
Committee of Public Safety, 511, 514, 

515, 516, 518 

Commune, the (of the Revolution), 
502-505, 507, 508, 511, 512, 515, 

516, 518 ; abolished, 518 
Compagnie de Chine, 427 
Compagnie des Indes, 427-428 
Compagnie des Indes Orientales, 427 
Compagnie d' Occident, or du Missis- 
sippi, 426-427 

Commission of Five, 564, 565 

Commission de Gouvernement pour 
les Travailleurs, 564 

Commodus, Kmperor, 11 

Communal movement, beginnings of 
the,' 92-96, 97 ; encouraged by 
lyouis- Philippe, 117; checked under 
lyouis IX, 125-126 ; disappearance 
of the free communes, 126 ; emerg- 
ence of the Third E)state as a politi- 
cal force, 150 ; Louis XI and, 214 

Compiegne, 179, 336 

Compte rendu au Roi, Necker's, 463 

Concini, Concino, 315, 317, 320-322, 
323. 326 

Concordat of 15 16, 231 ; of 1801, 

534 
Conde (Conde-sur-l'Escaut), 296, 513 
Cond6, house of, 536 
Cond6, Henri I, trince of, 275, 277, 

278, 281, 469 
Conde, Henri II, Prince of, 317, 320- 

321, 325, 326, 348 w., 469 
Conde, Henri- Jules, Prince of, 469 
Conde, Louis I, Prince of, 264, 269, 

272, 273, 274, 317, 469 
Conde, Louis II, Prince of, 348-349, 

35i> 354. 355, 356-357. 358-361. 

363, 375, 376, 377-378, 389 n., 

396, 436. 469 
Cond6, Louis III, Prince of, 469 
Conde, Louis-Joseph, Prince of, 536 
Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de 

Caritat, Marquis of, 460, 480, 498, 

514 w- 

598 



Confederation of the Rhine, 541, 542, 

547 
Confession of Faith of 1559, 268 

Conflans, 199 

Congregation, the, political associa- 
tion, 556 

Congress of Vienna, 550, 551 

Conn^table, appointed by Philippe- 
Auguste, 117. 5^6 a/50 Constable 

Conqueste de Constantinoble, 142 

Conrad III, Kmperor, 99, 100 

Conrart, Valentin, 407 

Conseil du Commerce, 368 

Conseil des Depeches, 367 

Conseil d'FJtat, 367 ; under the 
Consulate, 530, 537 ; under the 
Second Republic, 566 

Conseil des Finances, 367, 369, 370, 
423, 426 

Conseil de la Guerre, 368 

Conseil d'en Haut, 367. See Conseil 
d']&tat 

Conseil de Marine, 368 

Conseil des Parties, 367 

Conseil General de R^ence, 422 

Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, 
521 

Conservatory of Music, 521 

Considerations politiques et militaires 
sur la Suisse, of Louis-Napoleon, 
566 

Constable of France, Du Guesclin as, 
165 ; the Count of Armagnac as, 
168 ; Louis Bonaparte as, 539 

Constance, Duchess of Brittany, 105, 
no 

Constance, wife of Robert II, 61, 62 

Constantine I, Emperor, 13 

Constantinople, 32, 79, 82, 83, 85, 99, 
100, 107, 113, 215, 576 

Constituent Assembly of the Revolu- 
tion, 488-489, 490, 491-496, 497 ; 
of the Second Republic, 563, 564, 

565, 567, 568 

Constitution of 1791, 492-496, 497, 
499, 501 n.. 502, 507, 522 

Constitution of 1793, 513-514, 520 

Constitution of Year III, 520, 522, 
523, 525, 529 and n. 

Constitution of Year VIII, 530-531, 

533, 534, 538, 571 
Constitution of the First Empire, 

538-539 
Constitution of the Second Republic, 

566, 569 



.^u 



INDEX 



Constitution of January 14, 1852, 

570-571. 574 
Constitution of the Second Empire, 

574-575 
Consulate, the, 530-537. 539, 568 
Contes of I^a Fontaine, 410 
Conti, Armand de Bourbon, Prince 

of, 355. 356, 358 
Conti, Ivouis-Armand de Bourbon, 

Prince of, 428 
Continental System, or Blockade, 

543-544. 545. 547. 548 

Contrat social of Rousseau, 483, 484 

Contre Un of lya Bo^tie, 255 

Controller-General of Finances, Louis 
XIV's, 368, 370 ; Law becomes, 
429 ; the Abbe Terray as, 451, 453 ; 
Turgot as, 458, 478 ; Clugny as, 

- 461 ; Calonne as, 464-465 ; Brienne 
as, 465 ; Necker as, 468, 488 

Convulsionnaires, 441 

Copenhagen, 544 

Corbeil, Count of, 65 

Corbie, 341 

Corday, Charlotte, 513 

Cordelier Club, 494, 498 

Cordeliers, 494 n., 496 

Corneille, Pierre, 335 n., 408 

Cornelius Gallus, Caius, 11 

Cornelius Nepos, 1 1 

Corps Legislatif, under the Directory, 
522 ; under the Consulate, 530 
531 ; under the Empire, 539 

Corsica, acquired by France, 451 ; 
mentioned, 524 

Cortona, Pietro di, 259 

Corvee, 459, 461, 476, 477 

Corvei, monastery of, 43 

Counctt, the King's, Louis IX and, 
125 ; Philippe IV summons mem- 
bers of the Third Estate to, 150 ; 
development of, under Philippe 
IV, 151 ; the Council of State, 

. formed hy the States-General of 
1484, 219, 220 ; Louis XIV's 
various Councils, 367-368 ; men- 
tioned, 300, 301, 309, 316, 320, 
326, 461, 463. See also Conseil 
d']&tat 

Council of Ancients, 522 

Council of Constance, 386 n. 

Council of Five Hundred, 522 

Council of Sixteen, 284, 286, 293, 295, 
300-301, 305-306, 312 

Council of State — see Conseil d'Etat 



Council of Trent, 273, 318 

Counter- Reformation, 273 

Coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor, 528, 
537 n. ; of 22 Flor^al, Year VI, 
528 ; of December 1-2, 185 1, 570 

Cour de Cassation, 367, 493 

Cour des Aides, 353, 460 

Cour Pleniere, 467 

Cours prevdtales, 555 

Court, the French, practically began 
with Fran9ois I, 240 

Court of Requests, Paris, 124 

Courts : Louis IX and the judicial 
prerogatives of the nobility, 123 ; 
the Parliament of Paris estab- 
lished, 125 ; the baronial, lose 
ground, 145 

Courtrai, battle of (1302), 151 

Coustou, Guillaume, 412 

Const ou, Nicolas, 412 

Couthon, Georges, 508, 514, 515, 316, 
518 

Coutras, battle of, 284 

Coysevox, Antoine, 412 

Cracow, 280 

Crecy, battle of, 160, 162, 164, 191 

Credit Foncier, 575 

Credit Mobilier, 575 

Crequi, Frangois de, 378 

Crespy, Treaty of, 237 

Crime, growth of, under the Old 
Regime, 474-475 

Crimean War, 576 

Critique de V Boole des Femmes, 409 

Cromwell, Oliver, 361 

Crusades, France's prominent part 
in, 77 ; what inspired by, 78-79 ; 
the influence of, 86-88 ; the end 
of, 129 ; and the Renaissance, 

135 
Crusade, First, 64, 77-88, 98 ; Second, 

98-101, 149 ; Third, 105-109 ; 

Fourth, 112-114, 115, 142; Sixth, 

126-128, 139 ; Seventh, 128-129 
Crusade against the Albigenses, 114- 

116, 118, 139 
Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke 

of, 445 
Curchod, Suzanne (Mme Necker), 461 
Custine, Adam-Philippe, Count of, 

514 
Custom dues, between the various 

provinces, 477 ; abolished by the 

Constitution of 1791, 493 
Cyprus, 127 

599 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



DagobeIrT I, King of the Franks, 23, 

24. 25 
Dalmatia, 83, 113 
Damascus, 100 

Damiens, Robert-Fran9ois, 450, 452 
Damietta, 127 
Dammartin, Antoine de Chabannes, 

Coiint of, 194, 195, 200 
Dante, 37 n., 139 
Danton, Georges- Jacques, 494, 504, 

508, 511, 513, 514, 516 
Dantonists, 516, 518 
Dantzig, 441 

Danube, the, 82, 543, 545 
D'Artagnan, Dumas' hero, 335 n. 
Dauphin, origin of the title, 193 
Dauphine, 193, 194, 195, 467, 477 
David, J acques-I^ouis, 508 
' Days of the Barricades ' (1588), 285 ; 

(1648), 355 ; (1848), 565 

Decamerone, the, 256 n. 
Dec^rzes, !]©lie, Duke, 555, 556 
Declaration of 1682, 386 
Declaration of Pillnitz, 499 
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 492 
Deffente et Illustration de la Langue 

fvangoyse, 252 
Defoe, Daniel, 473 n. 
De la Republique of Jean Bodin, 254 
Delorme, PhiUbert, 259 
Demerara, 462 

Denbigh, William, first Earl of, 332 
Denmark, 292, 377, 431, 544, 580 
Departments, France divided into, 

493 
Descartes, Rene, 414 and n. 
Des^ze, Raymond, 509 
Desiderius, King of the I^ombards, 36 
Desmoulins, Camille, 489, 508, 515, 

516 
Dettingen, battle of, 443 
De Witt. Jan, 377 
Diamond necklace, the affair of the, 

457 
Diane of Poitiers, 244, 264 
Diderot, Denis, 479 
Dido se Sacrifiant of Jodelle, 253 
Diedenhofen, 349 
Dieppe, 291, 292, 315 
Dijon, 8 n., 214, 228, 306 
Dijon, Parliament of, 214 
Dime royale of Vauban, 477 
Dinant, 201 
Dion Cassius, 8 
Directory, the, 522-529, 539 

600 



Discours de la Mithode of Descartes, 

Discours politiques et militaires of lya 
None, 253 

Dolet, Btienne, 248, 250 

Domaine royale — see Royal domain 

Domremy, 174, 176, 179 

* Donation of Pippin,' 36 

' Do-nothing kings,' 23-24 

Don Quixote, 223 

Dorat, Jean, 252 

Dori, or Galigai, I^eonora, 315, 322 

Dormans, 281 

Douai, 151 

Douanes intevieures, 459, 478 

Dover, Treaty of, 376 

Doyat, Jean de, 212, 217 

Dragonnades, 388, 389 

Drama, the beginnings of, 141-142 ; 
deA'-elopment in, during the Renais- 
sance, 253 ; during the Grand 
Si^cle, 412-413 ; the democratiza- 
tion of, 472 

Dresden, battle of, 549 

Dreux, 273, 294 

Dreux-Breze, Henri-l^vrard de, 487 

Drogo, son of Pippin of Heristal, 28, 

29, 33 

Druidism in Gaul, Caesar and, 9 ; 
Augustus and, 10 

Dubois, Guillaume, 432-434, 436 

Dubois, Pierre, 148 

Ducos, Jean-Fran9ois, 498 

Ducos, Roger, Count, 529, 531 

Duels, judicial, forbidden by Louis 
IX, 122 ; Philippe III and, 145 ; 
the right of duelling reasserted by 
the nobles, 153 ; Richelieu en- 
deavours to suppress, 334-335 

Duff, J. Wight, II w. 

Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 164-165, 166 

Dumas, Alexandre, pdre, 253, 278 

Dumas, Mathieu, 498 

Dumouriez, Charles-Frangois, 501, 
505, 510, 512, 559 

Dunkerque (Dunkirk), 349, 360, 361, 
376, 434, 447, 462 

Dunois, Frangois, Count of, 217, 220, 
223 

Dunois, Jean, Count of, 177 

Duns Scotus, 136 

Dupleix, Joseph, Marquis, 444 

Duport, Adrien-Jean-Frangois, 494 

Duquesne, Abraham, 378 

Durango, battle of, 545 



INDEX 



Dutch, the, 315, 378, 392, 400 ; 

Louis XIV and, 375-376, 377 
Duvergier de Hauranne, Jean, 416 
Dux Francorum, Pippin of Heristal 

becomes, 28 ; Charles Martel as, 29 

Bast IndiEvS, 373 
Bbro, river, 38 

Bbroin, Mayor of the Palace, 24 
Bckmiihl, battle of, 545 
Eclogues of Clement Marot, 252 
Bdessa, 86, 98, 100 
Bdict of Amboise, 273, 274 
Bdict of January 1562, 271, 273 
Bdict of Nantes, 307-308, 316, 324, 
325, 333, 421 ; Revocation of, 388- 
390 
Bdict of Romorantin, 269 
Bdict of Saint-Germain, 275 
Bdinburgh, 424 

Bducation, Charlemagne and, 42-43 ; 
Rabelais' theory of, 257 ; a system 
of national, outlined by Turgot, 
459 ; the bourgeoisie and, 472 ; a 
system of public education intro- 
duced by the National Convention, 
521 ; systematized by Bonaparte, 
533-534 ; public instruction practi- 
cally in the hands of the clergy, 
556 ; freedom in university teach- 
ing restored by Martignac, 558 ; 
educational privileges of the Church 
restored, 568 ; regulated, under the 
Second Bmpire, 574 
Bdward I of Bngland, 150-15 1 
Bdward II of Bngland, 151, 157 
Bdward III of Bngland, 157, 158, 165, 
185, 191 ; his claim to the French 
throne, 156, 158-159, 169 ; invades 
France, 160 
Bdward IV of Bngland, 201, 203, 205 
Bdward, Prince (afterward Bdward 

II of Bngland), 151 
Bdward, the Black Prince, 160 
Bgypt, 113, 127, 129, 139; Napo- 
leon's expedition to, 526-527 ; 
evacuated by France under the 
Treaty of Amiens, 532 ; France 
supports Mehemet AU in, 561 
Bighty-nine Club, 494 
Binhard, 24, 35, 37, 44, 45 n. 
Blba, 527, 535 ; Napoleon sent to, 

550 ; Napoleon escapes from, 551 
Blbe, the, 38, 446, 542, 545 
Blbeuf, Charles II, Duke of, 355, 356 



Bleanor of Neuburg, 393 

Bleanor of Portugal, wife of Frangois 

I, 236 
Blectoral system, under lyouis XVIII, 

555, 55^ ; Charles X and, 558 
Blisabeth, sister of I^ouis XIII, 316, 
^ 469 
Blisabeth, sister of I^ouis XVI, 503, 

514 
Blizabeth, Queen of Bngland, 272, 

275, 291, 298, 304 
Blizabeth Farnese, 433 
Blizabeth Petrovna, Tsarina, 446 
:]^mery, Michel Particelli, Sieur d', 
.351-352, 353 
Emigres, 494 n., 499. 500. 5i9. 55o, 

, 557. 558 

Bmile of Rousseau, 483 and n., 484 

' Eminence Grise, 1', 345 

Bmpire, First, 537, 538-539i 55^, 554. 
567, 573 

Bmpire, Second, 571, 572-581 

Encyclopddie, the, 479-480 

Bnghien, I^ouis, Duke of — see Cond^, 
Ivouis II, Prince of 

Bnghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri, Duke 
oi, 536, 538 

Bngland. I. The country, 51, 70, 
106, 178, 185, 200, 248, 291, 308, 
330. 332, 343. 426, 429, 431. 472, 
480, 495, 559, 560, 562, 567, 574 ; 
the Renaissance in, 250, 251 ; 
Huguenots flee to, 390. II. The 
State, 91, no, 196, 232, 276, 306, 
374. 436 n., 443, 449, 519. 528, 
557 ; lyouis of France's preten- 
sions to the crown of, 112 ; Scot- 
land's alliance with France against, 
151 ; the Hundred Years' War 
with, 158 et seq. ; in the Holy 
League against Louis XII, 228 ; 
in the League against the Bmperor 
Charles V, 235 ; loses Calais, 243 ; 
Francois I and, 267 ; and Henri 
IV, 292, 299 ; supports Richelieu 
against the Huguenots, 330 ; inter- 
venes on behalf of the Huguenots, 
330-333 ,' supports France against 
Spain, 361 ; joins Holland and 
Sweden against France (Triple 
Alliance), 375-376 ; sides with 
France, 376, 377 ; joins Holland 
against France, 378, 379 ; in the 
War of the Spanish Succession, 
395-400 ; joins France and Hol- 

601 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



land in a new Triple Alliance, 433- 
434. 435 ; and the Seven Years' 
War, 444-447 ; France against, 
in the American War of Indepen- 
dence, 462-463 ; joins a coalition 
against France (1793), 510 ; Napo- 
leon and, 531-532, "535. 540-552; 
and the Mexican War, 577 ; and 
the Franco-Prussian War, 580 

Enguinegatte, 209 

Enquesteufs, appointed by St I^ouis, 
123 

Enrages, 515, 5 16 

Epernon, Jean-Louis de Nogaret, 
Duke of, 314. 323 

Erasmus, 248, 266 

Ernest, Archduke, 301 

Espaly, castle of, 172 

Espinosa, battle of, 545 

Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, 479' 

Estienne, Henri, 248, 258 

Estienne, Robert, 248, 258 

Estr^es, Gabrielle d', 317 

Estr^es, Louis-Charles-Cesar Letel- 
^ lier^ Coimt and Duke of, 446 

Etallonde, Gaillard d', 452 n. 

iHStampes, county, 199 

]&tampes, town, 65, 292, 360 

]§tampes, Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess 
of, 241 

Staples, Treaty of, 183 

Btienne, Count of Blois, 83 

Ettenheim, castle of, 536 

Eudes, or Odo, Count of Paris, Duke 
of France, 50-51, 52 

Eudes I, Count of Blois, 61 

Eudes II, Count of Blois, 63 

Eugene, Prince, 396, 397, 399, 400 

Eugenie, Empress, 574, 581 and n. 

Eugenius III, Pope, 98 

Bvreux, no, 199 

l^vreux, Robert, Count of, 93 

Excise duties, 477 

Executive Council of the National 
Convention, 504 

Executive of the Consulate, 530, 531, 

533. 

Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus 
Aristotelem, 414 

Extreme Left, in the Legislative As- 
sembly, 498-499. 5(?e Jacobins 

Eylau, battle of, 542 

Fables of La Fontaine, 410 
Fabliaux, 141 

602 



Fabre d' Eglantine, Philippe-Fran^ois- 

Nazaire, 508, 516 
Faerie Queene, 278 n. 
Falaise, in, 293 
Family Compact, the, 446, 447 
Farel, Guillaume, 266 
Farnese, Elizabeth, 433 
Fastolf, Sir John, 174, 178 
Father Joseph, Richelieu's friend, 

345 
Faubourg Saint- Antoine, Paris, 502 
Faubourg Saint- Germain, Paris, 322, 

354. 356, 381 
Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Paris, 502 
Faubourg Saint-Martin, Paris, 146, 

298 
February Revolution, the, 562, 563 
Fenelon, Fran9ois de Salignac de La 

Mothe-, 402 n. 
Ferdinand II, Emperor, 340, 341 
Ferdinand III, Emperor, 393 
Ferdinand II of Aragon — see Ferdi- 
nand V of Castile 
Ferdinand V of Castile (' the Catho- 
lic'), 210, 222, 224, 226-227 and 
n., 228 
FercQnand VII of Spain, 556 
Fermat, Pierre de, 414 
Festival of the Revolution, 515 n. 
Fete de la Federation, 494-495 
Feudalism, 54, 56, 57, 58 ; the anarchy 
of, 64-66, 89 ; the character of the 
system, 67-74 ; effect of the 
Crusades upon, 86-87 .' Louis VI 
and the feudal nobility, 89-90, 92, 
95 ; the communal movement and, 
92-96, 125 ; women admitted to 
the exercise of feudal rights, and 
effect of this, loi ; Philippe II and 
the feudal nobility, 103-104 ; the 
feudal nobility and Blanche of 
Castile, 1 19-120 ; Philippe III and 
the feudal nobility, 146 ; the 
influence of the legists upon the 
feudal conception of kingship, 147- 
148 ; feudal reaction, 153-154 ; 
the end of the feudal regime, 156, 

213 ; decline of the feudal nobility 
during the period of the Hundred 
Years' War, 1 91-192 ; Louis XI 
and the feudal nobility, 196-201, 

214 ; Brittany, the last stronghold 
of, becomes subject to the Crown, 
222 : the disappearance of the 
feudal military organization, 224 ; 



INDEX 



the disappearance of, reflected in 
architecture, 260 ; Richelieu orders 
the destruction of feudal fortresses, 
338 ; the centuries-old struggle 
between the monarchy and the 
forces of feudalism, 342-343 ; rise 
of a noblesse de cour out of the 
feudal nobility, 404 ; relics of, 
under the Old Regime, 473 

Feuds — see Fiefs 

Feuillants, 497-498, 501 

Ficino, Marsilio, 266 

Fiefs, or feuds, 67 ; women allowed 
to inherit, loi 

Field of the Cloth of Gold, 233 

Fifth Coalition, 545 

Finland, 543 

Flahaut, General de, 574 w. 

Flanders, 56, 68, 91, 92, 150, 162, 
202, 209, 222, 230, 233, 234, 236, 
360, 361, 375, 444 ; united to4iie 
French Crown, 151 

Flanders, Arnoul II, Count of, 60 

Flanders, Baldwin IX, Count of, 

113 
Flanders, Charles le Bon, Count of, 

92 
Flanders, Ferdinand of Portugal, 

Count of. III 
Flanders, Philip of Alsace, Count of, 

104 
Flanders, Robert II, Count of, 83 
Fleix, Peace of, 283 
Flemings, 92, 159, 162, 209, 283 
Flesselles, Jacques, 489 
Fleurus, battle of (1690), 391; (1794), 

517 
Fleury, Cardinal Andre-Hercule de, 

439. 450 
Florence, 224, 235, 247, 547 
Foix, Frangoise de, Countess of Cha- 

teaubriant, 241 
Foix, Gaston IV, Count of, 196 
Foix, Gaston de (Duke of Nemours), 

228 
Foix, Germaine de, 228 
Fontaine, Nicolas, 415 
Fontaine-Frangaise, battle of, 306 
Fontainebleau, 249, 259, 314, 381, 

395 
Fontanet, battle of, 49 
Fontanges, Duchess of, 383 
Fontenoy, battle of, 444 
* Foolish War, the,' 220-221 
Forbach, battle of, 581 



Fort Carre, near Antibes, 525 

Fort Saint-I^ouis (R6), 331 

Fort Saint-Martin, 331 

Fouche, Joseph, 515 

Fougeres, 182, 183 

Foulon, Joseph-Frangois, 490 

Foulques III, Count of Anjou, 63 

Foulques V, Count of Anjou, 92 

Foulques of Neuilly, 113 

Fouquet, Nicolas, 363 n,, 368-369, 

371 
Fourier, Francois - Charles - Mane, 

560 

Fourth Coalition, 542 

Fox, Charles James, 542 

France. Duchy of, 56, 57, 68 n. 

Franche-Comte, 208, 209, 375, 377, 
378, 380 

Franchise, limited under the Constitu- 
tion Df Year III, 522 ; qualification 
for, lowered under Louis-Philippe, 
559 ; universal suffrage under the 
Second Republic, 566 ; industrial 
disenfranchisement, 568 ; Louis- 
Napoleon promises universal suff- 
rage, 569 

Francia, 23 

Franciade, La, 253 

Francis II, Bmperor, 501 

Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 

577 
Francis of Paola, 211 
Franciscan Order, 494 n. 
Franco-Gallia of Hotman, 255 
Franco-Prussian War, 580-581 
Frangois I, 230-242, 243, 244 and n., 
246, 251, 259, 260, 263, 264, 266, 
267, 268, 287, 293, 342 ; struggle 
with the Emperor Charles V, 231- 
238 ; death, 238 ; character and 
influence, 238-242 ; and the Re- 
naissance, 239, 240, 245, 246, 249; 
and the Church, 239-240, 241 ; 
the French Court began with, 240 ; 
absolutism of, 241 ; the nobility 
and, 241 ; and the States-General 
and the Parliament of Paris, 241 ; 
the public debt initiated under, 
242 
Frangois II, 261, 262, 264, 269, 287 
Frangois of Angouleme (afterward 
Francois I), 228, 230. See Fran- 
gois I 
Frangois II, Duke of Brittany, 198, 
199, 201, 202, 204, 220, 221 



603 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Francois of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, 
242, 243, 244 and n., 261, 262, 263, 
268-269, 271-273 
Prank Ric, 23 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, 580 
Franklin, Benj^amin, 462, 481 
i^ranks, settlement of, in Gaul, 12, 
14-15 ; and Christianity, 13, 16- 
18, 32 ; derivation of the name, 
14 ; Salian and Ripuarian, 14-15 ; 
and the Church, 16-18, 32-34 ; 
Eastern and Western, 22-23 ; an 
element in the French race, 53 ; 
mentioned, 30 
Fredegonda, 21-22, 23 
Frederick I, Emperor (' Barbarossa '), 

106, 107 
Frederick II, Emperor, 121 
Frederick III, Emperor, 205 
Frederick II of Prussia (' the Great '), 

443. 444. 445-446, 449. 481 
Frederick III of Naples, 227 
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, battle at, 349 
French, the language — see I/anguage 
French, the race, elements in, 53 
Pr^ron, I/Ouis-Stanislas, 515, 518 
Pr^teval, no 
Friedland, battle of, 542 
Frisians, 28 

Froissart, 156, 160, 161, 184 n. 
Frondes, the, 352-361, 387, 408, 

472 
Fulda, monastery of, 43 
Fuller, Thomas, 137 
Puretiere, Antoine, 407 
Fustel de Coulanges, Numa-Denis, 10, 

54 



Gdbelle, the salt tax, 185, 255, 372, 

476-477 
Galfrid de Beaulieu, 130 w. 
Galicia, 546 

Galigai, or Dori, I/eonora, 315, 322 
Gallia Bracata, or Provincia, 4 ; 

Cisalpina, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11 ; Comata, 

9 ; Narbonensis, 11 ; Togata, 4 ; 

Transalpina, i, 5. See Gaul 
Galswintha, wife of Chilperic I, 21- 

22 
Galway, Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, 

Earl of, 397 
Gambia, 462 

Garde Nationale — see National Guard 
Gargantua of Rabelais, 256 



604 



Garigliano, battle of, 227 

Garnier-Pages, lyOuis-Antoine, 564 

Garonne, the, 19, 373 

Gascony, 46, 56, 68, loi, 164, 183 

Gassendi, Pierre, 414 

Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 317, 334, 
336-337. 338, 360, 469 

Gaudry, Bishop, 96 

Gaul, the Romans and, 1-13, 14 ; 
Caesar and, 5-10 ; the Romaniza- 
tion of, 9-1 1, 49 n. ; Augustus and, 
10 ; Germanic peoples settle in, 
12, 14-15, 27 ; the beginnings of 
Christianity in, 13 ; the Arabs in, 
29-30 ; the I^atin tongue in, 49 n. 

Gauls, the race, 2 

Gautier sans Avoir, 82 

Gaza, 527 

Gelee, Claude (Claude I/orrain), 412 w. 

Genappe, castle of, 195 

Geneva, 324, 463, 532 

Genoa, 107, 228, 235, 451, 526 

Gensonne, Armand, 498 

Geoffrey II of Anjou, 63 

Geoffrey IV of Anjou, 92, 102 

Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, 105 

Geoffrey of Villette, 124 

George I of England, 434, 435 

George II of England, 446 

Gergovia, 8 

Germanic Confederation, 510 

Germany, 38, 82, 83, 98, 112, 149, 
196, 205, 223, 228, 236 267, 299, 

315. 374. 378, 392, 397. 535. 537 
n., 560 ; emergence of, as a country, 
23, 50 ; in the Thirty Years' War, 
324, 340, 341, 350 ; in the War of 
the Spanish Succession, 395, 400 ; 
in the Seven Years' War, 445, 446 ; 
Napoleon in, 541 ; in the Sixth 
Coalition, 549 ; the Franco- Prus- 
sian War, 580-581 

Ghent, 159, 201, 237, 397, 551 

Gibbon, Edward, 461 n. 

Gibraltar, 397, 400 

Gilles, Pierre, 249 

Girardin, Rene-Ivouis, Marquis of, 498 

Girardon, Fran9ois, 412 

Gironde, department, 498 

Girondins, 498, 500, 501, 502, 503, 
506-509, 511-518, 519 

Gisors, 106 

Glaber, Rodulfus, 62 n. 

Gloucester, Himiphrey, Duke of, 173 

Gobel, J ean-Baptiste- Joseph, 517 



INDEX 



Gobelin, Abb6, 384 

Gobelins, the tapestry manufactory 
of, 372 n. 

Godfrey of Bouillon, 86, 98 

Goethe, 408 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 471 n. 

Gomberville, Marin I,eroy de, 406 

Gondi, Tean-Fran9ois-Paul de — see 
Retz, Cardinal de 

Gontran, King of Orleans and of 
Burgundy, 25 

Gothic architecture, rise and develop- 
ment of, 143-144 ; the Renais- 
sance and, 259 

Goujon, Jean, 258, 260 

Gramont, Antoine - Alfred - Agenor, 
Duke of, 581 

Grand Alliance of The Hague, 377, 

' 395, 399 

' Grand Conde, le ' — see Cond^ 
Grand Council, 188, 353 
Grand Cyrus, Le, of Mile de Scudery, 

405 n., 406 
' Grand Siecle, Le,' 404-418 
Grand Trianon, 412 
Grand Voyer, Sully as, 310 
' Grande Mademoiselle, la,' 360 
Grande Terreur, 516-517 
Grandgousier, 257 
Grangeneuve, J acques- Antoine, 498 
Granson, 206 
Grasse, Frangois- Joseph-Paul, Count 

of, 462 
Gratian, KmpeTor, 13 
Gravelines, 233 
Gravelotte, battle of, 581 
Great St Bernard, 532 
Gregoire, Henri, 492 
Gregory I, Pope, 36 
Gregory II, Pope, 32 
Gregory III, Pope, 32 
Gregory V, Pope, 61 
Gregory VII, Pope, 79 
Gregory IX, Pope, 121 
Gregory XIV, Pope, 299 
Gregory of Tours, 15, 16 n., 17 n., 

18 n., 19 and n., 20, 21 n. 
Grenada, 462 
Grenoble, 194, 512, 551 
Grimm, Jacob, 14 m. 
Grimwald, son of Pippin of Heristal, 

28, 29, 33 
Grimwald, son of Pippin of I^anden, 

24, 28, 33 
Grisons, 339 



Guadet, Marguerite-0ie, 498, 514 w. 
Guastalla, duchy of, 541 
Guastalla, town, 442 
Guerre des Deux Jeannes, 160, 161, 

163, 164 
Guerre folle, 220-221 
Guesclin — see Du Guesclin ^ 

Guild of Paris, 97 
Guilds, 459, 473 ; abolished, 493 
Guilhiermoz, P., 11 1 n. 
Guillaume le Batard, 63. See Wil- 
liam the Conqueror 
Guinegatte, 209, 228 
Guines, 233 
Guise, house of, 244, 262, 263, 264, 

265, 291, 334 n. 
Guise, Charles of I^orraine, fourth 

Duke of, 296, 300, 301, 302, 306 
Guise, Claude, first Duke of, 244 n. 
Guise, Fran9ois of Ivorraine, Duke of, 

242, 243, 244 andn., 261, 262, 263, 

268-269, 271-273 
Guise, Henri I, Duke of, 244 and n., 

263, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284- 

285, 286, 290, 300 
Guiton, Jean, 332, 333 
Guizot, Frangois - Pierre - Guillaume, 

52 n., 54, 62 n., 68, 95 n., 561-562 
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, 340- 

341 
Guyenne, 56, loi, 105, no, 150, 151, 

162, 165, 172, 183, 200, 203, 210, 

218, 255, 281, 359 -' 

Guyenne, Charles, Duke of, 203. See 

Charles, Duke of Berry (i) 
Guy on, Mme, 418 



Hague, The, 434 

Hainaut, 208 

Hainaut, house of, 129 

Hainaut, Jacqueline, Countess of, 173 

Ham, fortress of, 567, 572 

Hamburg, 547 

Hannibal, 3, 4 

Hanotaux, Albert-Auguste-Gabriel, 

347 *^- 
Hanover, city, 434 
Hanover, E)lectorate of, 535, 580 
Hanriot, Nicolas, 512 
Hapsburg, house of, 340, 341 
Harfleur, 16 
Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, 399, 

400 
Hastenbeck, 445 



605 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Haussmann, Baron Nicolas, 575 
Hubert, J acques-Ren6, 512, 515, 516, 

517 
H^bertists, 516, 518 
Heinsius, Anthony, 396 
Helvetic Confederation, 535 
Helvetii, 5 
Henri I, 62-63, i57 
Henri II, 242-244, 261, 264, 267, 287, 

293, 340 n. See also Henri, Prince 
Henri III, 261, 262, 280-288, 289, 

293 

Henri IV, 254, 289-313, 314, 315. 
316, 318, 320, 324, 329, 342, 351, 
415 n., 420, 469 ; struggle with the 
Ivcague, 290-306 ; besieges Paris, 
295-298 ; adopts Catholicism, 302- 
303 ; crowned at Chartres, and 
enters Paris, 305 ; his pacific 
policy, 306 ; and the nobles, 306, 
3 10-3 1 1, 316-317 ; struggle with 
Philip II, 306-307 ; proclaims the 
Kdict of Nantes, 307 ; his work of 
reconstruction, 308-310 ; marriage 
with Marie de MMicis, 311 ; assas- 
sinated, 312 ; character, 312-313. 
See also Henri III of Navarre 

' Henri V/ 469 

Henri, Prince (afterward Henri II), 
236. See Henri II 

Henri, Duke of Anjou, 280. See 
Henri III 

Henri of Cond^ — see Conde 

Henri I, Duke of Guise — see Guise, 
Henri, Duke of 

Henri II, Duke of Montmorency, 332, 

336, 337 
Henri I of Navarre, 146 
Henri II of Navarre, 263 
Henri III of Navarre, 263-264, 274- 

275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 

284-285, 286, 288, 289. See also 

Henri IV 
Henriette- Marie of France, 330, 469 
Henry I of England, 91, 92 
Henry II of England, I^ouis VII and, 

102 ; Philippe II and, 104-105 
Henry III of England, 112, 118, 120- 

121, 128 
Henry IV of England, 168 
Henry V of England, 168-171, 172, 

182, 191 
Henry VI of England, 171, 172 ; 

crowned King of France, 182 
Henry VI, Shakespeare's play, 178 

606 



Henry VII of England, 222. See 
also Henry Tudor 

Henry VIII of England, 149, 228, 
233. 234, 235, 236, 237, 238 

Henry VI of Germany, 109 

Henry, Prince, son of Henry II of 
England, 105 

Henry Tudor (afterward Henry VII 
of England), 220. See Henry VII 

Heptameron, the; 256 n. 

H^rault de Sechelles, Marie- Jean, 516 

Hermengard, wife of lyouis I, 47 

Hermonymus, Georgius, 246 

Hesse, Grand Duchy of, 580 

Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, 31 w. 

Hippolyte et Aricie of Rameau, 413 

Hirschau, monastery of, 43 

Histoire de la Guerre des Albigeois, 
115 n. 

Historia Francorum, 16 n., 17 w. 

Hlodion, or Chlodion, 15 

Hlodowig, or Clovis — see Clovis 

Hoche, I^azare, 528 

Hodgkin, Thomas, 28 n., 29 n. 

Hogue-Saint-Vaast, La, 160 

Hohenlinden, battle of, 532 

Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d', 
480 

Holland, 330, 374, 375, 390, 395, 
396, 400, 426, 433, 434, 435, 443, 
510, 532, 541, 580 ; war with, 375- 
379 ; made a French province by 
Napoleon, 545 

Holy AUiance, 551, 556 

Holy I^and — see Palestine 

Holy I^eague (1509), 228 ; (1526), 235 ; 
(1576) — see Iveague, the 

Holy Roman Empire, 233, 350, 377, 
380, 395, 396, 399 ; Richelieu's 
policy responsible for the destruc- 
tion of the coherence of the Impe- 
rial states, 341 ; dissolved by 
Napoleon, 541 

Horace, 43 

Hortense, wife of lyouis Bonaparte, 
566, 574 n. 

' Hotel,' department for personal 
service to the king instituted by 
Philippe IV, 151 

Hotel du Bourgtheroulde, Rouen, 259 

Hotel des Invalides, Paris, 412, 489, 
567 

Hotel de Ville, Paris, 186, i8y n., 259, 
296, 503. 565 

Hotman, Frangois, 255 



INDEX 



Houchard, Jean-Nicolas, 514 

House of Commons, 320, 399 

Hroland, or Roland, 38 

Hrolf, or RoUo, 52 

Hubertsburg, Treaty of, 447 

Hudson Bay Territory, 400 

Hugo. Victor, 253, 256, 570 

Huguenots, 244, 471, Book III, Chap. 
X, and Book IV, Chaps. I, II, III, 
passim ; Richelieu and, 328, 329- 
333. 339, 340, 342, 343, 386 ; I,ouis 
XIV and, 386-390 

Hugues Capet, 51-52, 57-58, 60, 61, 
62, 68 and n., 155, 157 

Hugues le Grand, 51 

Hugues du Puiset, 90 

Hugues, Count of Vermandois, 82 

' Hundred Days, the,' 551, 552, 555 
-Hundred Years' War, the, 158-193, 
201, 224, 246 ; Edward III invades 
France — the battle of Cr^cy, 160; 
Kdward gains Calais, 1 60-1 61 ; the 
battle of Poitiers, 162 ; the Treaty 
of Br^tigny, 162 ; England loses 
most of her French possessions, 
166 ; Henry V's invasion — the 
Treaty of Troyes, 1 69-1 71 ; Jeanne 
Dare, 174-182 ; Henry VI of 
England crowned King of France, 
182 ; end of the war, 183 ; social 
and political condition of France 
during the war, 184-193 ; effect on 
the feudal aristocracy, 191-192 ; 
France's recovery from, 195 

Hungary, 82, 83, 222, 443 

Huns, 12 

Hunting, the nobles deprived of the 
right of, 197 

Huss, John, 191 M. 

Huy, Netherlands, 82 

Huyghens, Christian, 414 

Hymne h I'Armee du Rhin, 502 w. 

IcoNiUM, 107 

I dees Napoleoniennes of I^ouis-Napo- 

Hon, 567 
He Bourbon, 444 
He de la Cite, Paris, 118 
Ile-de-France, province, 186, 200 
Ile-de-France (Mauritius), 444 
Iliad, the, 250 
Illyria, 5, 545. 547 
Immunitas, in the feudal system, 69, 

72 
Imperialists, 550, 555, 566 



' Importants, the,' 350-351 

Income tax, 493 

India, 444, 447 

Indulgents, 515 

Industry, benefited by the Crusades, 
87 ; growth of, 97 ; Louis IX and, 
122 ; encouraged by I^ouis XI, 
215 ; impaired by the Wats 
of Religion, 308 ; Sully's un- 
sympathetic attitude to, 310 ; 
encouraged by Henri IV, 310 ; 
encouraged by Richelieu. 344 ; 
developed by Colbert, 372 ; effect 
of Huguenot emigration upon, 
390 ; adversely affected by the 
War of the Spanish Succession, 
401; I/aw's 'System' and, 425, 
431 ; developed by Napoleon, 534 ; 
fostered by Napoleon III, 575 

Infanta Anne, 316 

Infanta Isabella, 300, 301 

Infanta Maria Theresa (i), 361 

Infanta Maria Theresa (2), 435, 438 

Ingeburge, wife of Philippe-Auguste, 
116 n. 

Innocent II, Pope, 97 

Innocent III, Pope, 112, 113, 114- 
115, 116 and n. 

Innocent IV, Pope, 121, 127 

Innocent XII, Pope, 418 

Inquisition, the, 116, 269 

Institute of France, 521 

Instituts de la Religion chretienne of 
Calvin, 254, 267 

Intendants, re-instituted by Riche- 
lieu, 338-339 ; the Conference of 
St lyouis demands the abolition of, 
354 'y growth in power of, 368, 474 

Invalides, Hotel des, 412, 489, 567 

Ionian Isles, 547 

Irenaeus, St, 13 

Irene, Empress, 36 

Irmengard, wife of I^ouis I, 55 

Iron Crown, the, 36 

Ironsides, fight in Flanders, 361 

Isabella, Queen of Castile, 210, 227 n. 

Isabelle of Bavaria, 167, 168, 170, 176 

Isabelle, wife of Edward II of 
England, 151, 156, 157 

Isabelle of Hainaut, wife of Philippe 
II, 104, 129 

Isabelle Taillefer, no, in n. 

Isidori Pacensis Chronicon, 30 n. 

Isnard, Maximin, 498 

Issoudun, 105 



607 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Italy, 5, II, 32, 34, 38, 46, 47, 48, 80, 
81, 121, 148, 196, 244 n., 246, 
247, 248, 251, 252, 259, 325, 340, 
346, 360, 380, 396, 397, 400, 431, 
433. 434, 441. 525, 526, 528. .560 ; 
Charlemagne invades, 36, 37 ; 
Charles VIII' s invasion of, 223- 
225, 247, 249 ; lyouis XII's inva- 
sions of, 226-228, 229 ; PranQois I 
and, 230-231, 233, 234, 235, 236 ; 
Henri II and, 242 ; the end of 
France's effort to establish a foot- 
ing in, 243 ; Napoleon crowned 
King of, 538 ; Napoleon III and, 
576-577 ; war with, 578 

Ivry, battle of, 294. 299, 302 

Jacobin Ci^ub, 494, 498, 518, 519, 559 
Jacobins, 484, 494 n., 498, 500, 503^, 

506-509, 511-512, 519, 525, 528 

529, 533, 534, 535. See Mountain 
Jacobites, 400 
' Jacquerie,' the, 186 
' Jacques Bonhomme,' 186 n. 
Jaffa, 527 
Jamaica, 462 

James II of England, 390, 395, 435 
James V of Scotland, 236, 244. n. 
Jamyn, Amadis, 250 
Jansen, Cornelius, 415, 416, 417 
Jansenism, 414-418, 440-441 
Jargeau, 178 
Jarnac, 274 
Jean I, 155 
Jean II, 161-162, 163, 185, 187, 188, 

192, 287 
Jeanne, wife of Charles of Blois, 159 
Jeanne Dare, 174-182, 1 91-192 
Jeanne, daughter of I^ouis XI, 210, 

216, 226 
Jeanne, wife of John of Montfort, 160 
Jeanne of Navarre, wife of Philippe 

IV, 146, 147 
Jeanne of Navarre, daughter of 

IvOuisX, 157 
Jeannin, Pierre, 316 
Jemappes, battle of, 510 
Jena, battle of, 542 
Jerusalem, 63, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 

85, 86, 91, 98, 100, 105, 108, 109, 

113, 127, 128, 224 
Jesuits, 273, 312, 346, 415 and n., 

416 andn., 417, 440, 451, 452, 558 
Jeu d'Adam, or de la Feuillee, Le, 142 
Jeu de Robin et de Marion, Le, 142 

608 



Jeunes gens, of the Revolution, 519 

Jeunesse doree, la, 519 

Jews, persecution of, under Robert 

II, 62 ; persecution of, in E)urope, 

during the First Crusade, 82 ; 

Richard I's persecution of, 106 ; 

Louis IX' s treatment of, 132 ; 

persecuted by Philippe IV, 152 ; 

Charles IV and, 154 ; persecution 

of, in Philippe V's reign, 155 ; 

persecution of, during the Black 

Death, 185 
Joan of Arc — see Jeanne Dare 
Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand V of 

Castile, 227 n. 
Jodelle, Btienne, 252, 253 
John, King of England, 110-112, 

116 n. 
John II, King of Aragon, 203 
John, Prince (afterward King John 

of England), 105, 109, no 
John V, Duke of Alengon, 210 
John V, Count of Armagnac, 203, 210 
John of France, Duke of Berry, 167 
John the Fearless, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 167-168, 169, 170 
John IV of Montfort, 159-160 
John of Werth, 349 
Johnson, President Andrew, 578 
Joinville, 124 w., 271 
Joinville, Jean de, 124, 129, 142 
Joseph I, Emperor, 393, 399 
Joseph II, Emperor, 457 
Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, 392, 

393, 394 
Josephine, wife of Napoleon, 525 539 

546, 566 
Jourdain de I'lsle, 154 
Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, Count, 517, 

525 
Journal de Dangeau, 402 n. 
Journal officiel, 578 
Journee des dupes, la, 336 
Jouvenel des Ursins, Jean, 190 
Joyeuse, Anne, Duke of, 284 
Juarez, Benito Pablo, 577 
Judaism, 534 

Judith, wife of lyouis I, 47, 55 
Judith of du Bartas, 253 
Julian the Apostate, 15, 58 
Julius Caesar, and Gaul, i, 2, 5-10 ; 

mentioned, 14 n., 37, 58 
Julius II, Pope, 228 
Junot, Andoche, 525, 544 
Jura Mountains, 48, 206 



INDEX 



Jurandes, 459, 461, 478 

Jury, trial by, 493 

Justice, administration of, Louis IX 
and, 123-125 ; the feudal nobility 
deprived of the rigi^t of administer- 
ing justice, 192 ; tampered with 
by Richelieu, 344 ; changes in, 
under the Constitution of 1791, 493 

Justice de la Paix, 493 

Juvenal, 43 

KarIv — see Charles 

Karlings, 26-56, 67, 69 ; tables of 

the dynasty, 33, 55 ; extinction of 

the dyTiasty, 51 
Karloman, son of Charles Martel, 31, 

33 
Karloman, son of Ivouis II, 50, 55 
Karloman, son of Pippin the Short, 

33. 34.- 36 
Kehl, 441 

Kiersy-sur-Oise, Edict of, 56 n., 67 
Kleber, Jean-Baptiste, 513, 527 
Klosterzeven, 445 
Knighthood, 74-75 
Knights Hospitallers, 87 
Knights of St John, 108 n. 
Knights Templars, 87 ; suppression 

of the order by Philippe IV, 149, 

150. 152 
Koniggratz, 580 
Koran, the, 29 

IvA BarrE, Jean-Fran9ois Lefevre de, 

452 n., 481 
Iva Boetie, iStienne de, 255 
Iva Bourdonnaye, FranQois-Regis de, 

558 
Iva Bruyere, Jean de, 410 
La Calprenede, Gautier de Costes de, 

406 
La Chaise, Pere, 388, 417 
La Charite, 275, 278 
La Fayette, Marquis de, 465, 489, 490, 

491, 494, 496, 498, 500, 502, 503, 
504, 507, 510 

La Fayette, Mme de, 407 

La Fontaine, Jean de, 410 

Lagny, 298 

La Hogue, battle of, 391 

Laisne, Jeanne (' Hachette'), 204 

Lally-ToUendal, Thomas-Arthur de, 

447, 452 n. 
Lally-ToUendal, Trophime-Gerard de, 

492, 554 

La Marche, Hugues X, Count of, 120 



Lamartine, Alphonse - Marie - Louis ' 

Prat de. 483, 563, 564 
Lamballe, Princesse de, 505 
Lamennais, F61icite-Robert de, 561 
' La Mdre Ang^lique,' 415 
Lameth, Charles-Malo-Frangois de, 

494. 507 

Lameth, Theodore de, 498, 507 

La Motte, Jean de, 457 n. 

Lancelot, Claude, 415 

Land-tenure in the medieval period 
67 

Langres Cathedral, 143 

Language, the French, the begin- 
nings of, 49 ; the langue d'oc and 
the langue d'oil, 62 ; replaces Latin 
in criminal trials, 229 ; writers of 
the Renaissance and, 252-253 ; the 
work of the Academic for the 
French language, 408 

Languedoc, 118, 172, 218, 306, 332, 

336, 338, 439. 477 

Languet, Hubert, 255 

La Noue, Frangois de, 253 

Lanson, G., 404 

Laon, 90, 96, 300, 306 

Laon Cathedral, 143 

Larevellidre-Lepeaux, Louis-Marie, 
523. 528 

La Riviere, Jean Bureau de, 190 

La Riviere, Lemercier de, 478 

La Roche- Abeille, 275 

La Rochefoucauld, Frangois VI, Duke 
of, 351, 366 

La Rochefoucauld-d'Knville, Louis- 
Alexandre, Duke of, 492 

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Fran- 
9ois-Alexandre-Fr^d€ric, Duke of, 
489 

La Rochelle, 274, 275, 279, 325, 330 ; 
siege of, 331-333. 334 

La Rochelle, Peace of, 279, 280 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, 427 n. 

Lascaris, Andreas Janus, 247 

Later an Council of 1215, 116 

Latin, the language, in Gaul, 49 n. 
replaced by French in crimina 
trials, 229 ; writers of the Renais- 
sance and, 252 

Launay, Bernard- Rene Jourdan, Mar- 
quis de, 489 

Lavall^e, T.-S., 37 n., 153 n., 199 n. 

Lavisse, Ernest, 83 w., 217 w. 

Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 514 

Law, John, 424-432 



2Q 



609 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



I^aw, Louis IX's reforms in, 123-125 ; 
the legists and their influence, 147- 
148 ; Ifouis XII' s reforms in, 229 ; 
changes in, under the Constitution of 
1791, 493 ; the Code Napoleon, 534 

I^aw of 22 Prairial, 516, 517, 518 

Lawfeld, battle of, 444 

Laxard, or I^assoir, Durand, 175 

League, the (Sainte Ligue), 263, 281- 
282, 283, 284, 285, 289, 290-306, 
316 

League of Augsburg, 380, 390 ; war 
with the, 390-392 

League of Cambrai, 228 

League of Neutrals, 532 

League of Public Welfare, 197-201 

League of the Rhine, 361, 376 

Lebon, Joseph, 515 

Le Brun, Charles, 412 

Lebrun, Charles-Frangois, 531, 539 

Le Bugey, 243 

Leclerc^Jean, 266 

Le Daim, Olivier, 212, 217 

Ledru - Rollin, Alexandre - Auguste, 
561, 564, 566, 568 

Lefevre, Jean, 414 

Lefevre d'l^taples, Jacques, 248, 249, 
258, 266 

Legendre, Louis, 502 

Legion of Honour, instituted, 539 

Legislative Assembly, of the Revolu- 
tion, 492, 497-505» 506 ; of the 
Second Republic, 566, 567, 568, 

569. 570 
Legists, the, 147-148 
Leipzig, battle of, 549 
Le Maltre, Antoine, 415 
Le Mans, 19, 105, 293 
Le Normant d']^tioles, 448 
Lens, battle of, 349, 354, 363 
Leo III (* the Isaurian '), Emperor, 32 
Leo III, Pope, 37, 42 n., 47 
Leo X, Pope, 228 
Leopold I, Kmperor, 392, 393, 394 
Leopold II, Emperor, 499 
Leopold, Prince, of HohenzoUern, 580 
Le Puy, 172 
L^rida, battle of, 349 
Les Andelys, no 
Lescot, Pierre, 259 
Le Sueur, EJustache, 412 
Leszcynska, Marie, 438-439 
Le Tellier, Michel, 370, 389 
Letoumeur, Charles-Louis-Fran9ois- 

Honor6 523 

610 



Lettres de cachet, 354, 471 

Lettres persanes, 479 

Lettres provinciates of Pascal, 416 

Liberals, 555, 556, 562 

Li€ge, 201, 202, 396 

Ligue — see League 

Lille, III, 151, 397 

Lillo, George, 472, 473 n. 

Limoges, 165, 458 

Limoges, Ad^mar V„ Viscount of, no 

Limousin, 121, 162, 165, 432, 458, 478 

Lindsey, Robert Bertie, Karl of, 332 

Lisbon, 544 

Lisieujx, in, 293 

Literature, Gallic, 11 ; development 
of, in the medieval period, 138— 
143 ; fostered by Louis XI, 215 ; 
of the Renaissance, 250-258 ; the 
influence of the salons on, 405-407, 
408 ; classicism and, 407-411 ; the 
influence of the Academie on, 407- 
408 ; the influence of the Court 
on, 408-411 ; the democratization 
of, 409-411, 472 n. ; the part 
played by literature in producing 
the Revolution, 478-484 

Liutprand, King of the Lombards, 32 

Livy, 2 n. 

Local government, Richelieu destroys, 

338 
Locke, John, 414 n. 
Lodeve, 439 

Loi de SiHrete generate, 575 
Loi des Suspects, 514 
Loire, the, 16, 19, 138, 172, 173, 259, 

286, 310, 359 
Loiret, 57 

Lombard, Peter, 136, 137 
Lombards, 32, 34 ; Charlemagne's 

wars with, 35, 36 
Lombardy, 526, 532 
Lom^ie de Brienne, D^tienne-Charles 

de, 465, 467 
London, 112, 162, 228, 374, 424, 536, 

567 
Long Parliament, English, 353 
Longjumeau, 274 
Longjumeau, plain of, 199 
Longueville, Anne - Genevieve de 

Bourbon, Duchess of, 351, 355, 359 
Longueville, Henry I, Duke of, 291, 

292 
Longueville, Henry II, Duke of, 317, 

321, 358 
Longwy, 504 



INDEX 



I/orenzo the Magnificent, 247 
lyorrain, Claude, 412 n. 
I/orraine, 49. 50, 81, 185, 206, 336, 
341, 349, 394 ; united to France, 
442 ; ceded to Prussia, 581 
I/orraine, house of, 244 
I/orraine, Charles, Cardinal of, 244 and 
n., 261, 262-263, 268-269, 271. 280 
I^rraine,Charles,Duke of, 51 , 55, 60,62 
lyorraine, Charles II, Duke of, 293, 306 
Lorraine, Charles III, Duke of, 336 
I/orraine, Frangois-!^tienne, Duke of, 

442 
Lorraine, Ren6 II, Duke of, 206, 217 
I/orris, Guillaume de, 140 
lyothair I, Bmperor, 47, 48-50, 55 
lyothair. King of France, 51, 55 
Lotharingia, 49, 205. See Lorraine 
Lottery, royal, established by Fran- 

9ois I, 242 
Loudun, Treaty of, 320 
Louis I (' le Pieux,' ' le Debon- 

naire'), 46-48, 53, 54, 55 
Louis II {' le B^gue '), 50, 51, 53, 55 
Louis III, 50, 55 
Louis IV {' d'Outremer'), 51, 55 
Louis V (' le Faineant '), 51, 55 
Louis VI (' le Gros '), 89-96, 97, 157 ; 
and the feudal nobility, 89-90, 92 ; 
and the communal movement, 95- 
96 
Louis VII (' le Jeune'), 92, 97-102, 
104, no, 143, 157 ; and the com- 
munal movement, 96, 97 ; and 
the Church, 97 ; and the Second 
Crusade, 98-100 ; and Henry II 
of England, 102 
Louis VIII ('le Lion'), 118, 157. 

See also Louis, son of Philip II 
Louis IX est Louis'), 116, 118, 

1 19-133. 134. 135. 138, 139* 142, 
143, 144, 145, 157, 217, 223 ; his 
mother's regency, 1 19-120; and 
the feudal nobility, 1 20-1 21 ; rela- 
tions with Henry III of England, 
120-121 ; and the Church, 121- 
122 ; administrative and other 
reforms, 122-126 ; establishes the 
Parliament of Paris, 125 ; inter- 
feres with the communes, 125- 
126 ; takes part in the Sixth and 
Seventh Crusades, 126-129 ; death, 
129 ; character, 129-133 
Louis X ('le Hutin'), 153, 155, 156, 

157 



Louis XI, 194-215, 216, 217, 218, 
222, 233, 246, 287, 342 ; and the 
nobles, 196-201, 214 ; and the 
League of Pubhc Welfare, 197- 
201 ; his struggle with Charles the 
Bold, 201-208 ; his large gains of 
territory, 208-210 ; consolidation 
of the monarchy under, 210 ; death, 
211-212 ; character and policy, 
212-215 

Louis XII, 210, 216, 225-229, 230, 
240, 246, 287 ; wars with Italy, 
226-228, 229 ; death, 229 ; his 
administration, 229. See also 
Louis, Duke of Orleans 

Louis XIII, 251, 314-345, 346, 350, 
351, 393» 404. 407. 469; asserts 
hinself as King, 321-322, 323 ; 
conflict with the Huguenots, 324- 
325 ; Richelieu's influence over, 
326-328 ; his character, 327 ; 
death, 345 ; his chastity; 381 ; 
his fondness for music, 412 

Louis XIV, 251, 343, 346-403, 404, 
408, 411, 418 n., 419, 427 n.. 434, 
436 n., 439, 441, 448, 466, 469, 
470, 471. 476 w., 477, 531 ; the 
Regency of Anne of Austria and 
the administration of Mazarin, 346- 

361 ; his reliance upon Mazarin, 

362 ; asserts his authority as King, 
362 ; overrides the Parliament of 
Paris, 363 ; his absolutist ideas 
received from Mazarin, 363 ; his 
conception of absolute monarchy, 
363-365. 367 ; as King, 365-367 ; 
character and attributes, 365-366 ; 
his system of government, 367—368, 
422 ; and Fouquet, 368-369 ; and 
Colbert, 369-370, 380-381 ; the 
marriage with Marie-Th^r^se and 
the War of Devolution, 374-375 ; 
the war with Holland, 375-379 ; 
receives the title of ' le Grand,' 
379 ; growth of his power, 380 ; 
his extravagances, 381 ; Louvois 
and, 381 ; his private life, 381- 
382 ; and Mme de Maintenon, 382- 
385, 388, 402 ; his religious policy, 
385-386 ; his quarrel with Rome 
over supremacy, 385-386 ; poUcy 
toward the Huguenots, 386-390 ; 
revokes the Edict of Nantes, 388- 
390 ; and the war \dth the League 
of Augsburg, 390-392 ; and the 

611 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



War of the Spanish Succession, 392- 
400 ; appeals to the nation, 398- 
399 ; death, 402-403 ; and the 
bourgeoisie, 410, 422 ; on Moliere, 
410 n. ; his influence upon the 
art of his time, 411-412 ; and 
music, 412-413 ; the teaching of 
Cartesianism prohibited under, 414; 
opposes Jansenism, 416-418 ; his 
system of government by Secre- 
taries of State abolished, and 
restored, 422-423, 433 ; his burden 
of debt upon the coimtry, 423 ; 
the Age of, 361, 410-41 1 

Ivouis XV, 401, 419-454, 455 and n., 
458, 469, 471 ; betrothed to the 
Infanta, 435, 438 ; crowned, and 
assumes the Kingship, 436 ; mar- 
ried to Marie I^eszcyn.ska, 438-439 ; 
character, 448 ; popular feeling 
against him, 450, 453 ; death, 453 

Louis XVI, 455-468, 469, 485-510, 
522, 523, 528 n., 550 ; qualities and 
character, 456 ; Marie- Antoinette's 
influence over, 456 ; and Turgot, 
458-461 ; struggle with the Parlia 
ment of Paris, 465-467 ; and the 
vStates-General of 1789, 485-488 ; 
and the Constituent Assembly, 
488-490 ; yields to the Assembly, 
490 ; attitude to the Constitution 
of 1 79 1, 494-496 ; attempts flight, 
495 ; supported by the European 
Powers against the Revolution- 
aries, 499 ; the , Commune and, 
502-504 ; deposed, 506 ; con- 
demned and executed, 509-510 

' I^ouis XVII,' 469, 528 n. 

lyouis XVIII, 469, 4^5 n., 550-552, 
554-556, 557 

Louis, son of Charles VII (afterward 
Louis XI), 194-195. See Louis XI 

Louis, son of Louis IX, 132 

Louis, son of Louis XIV (' le Grand 
Dauphin'), 392, 393, 394. 40i, 4^9 

Louis, son of Louis XV, 455 n., 469 

Louis, son of Philippe II (afterward 
Louis VIII), III, 112. See Louis 
VIII 

Louis I, Duke of Anjou, 167 

Louis, Duke of Anjou (afterward 
Louis XV), 402. See Louis XV 

Louis of Bavaria, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55 

Louis, Duke of Burgundy, 393, 401- 
402, 469 

612 



Louis of France, Duke of Orleans, 
167-168, 226 n., 230, 287 

Louis, Duke of Orleans (afterward 
Louis XII), 200, 210, 216, 217, 219, 
220, 221, 223, 225. See Louis XII 

Louis de Luxembourg, Count of 
Saint- Pol, 210 

Louis-Philippe, King, 469, 559-5^2, 

567. 569 
Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans 

i'l^galiW), 469, 489, 508, 514,559 

Louis-Napol^n, Prince — see Bona- 
parte 

Louise of Savoy, 230, 236, 241 

Louisiana, 427, 444, 447 

Louvel, Louis- Pierre, 556 

Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste, 
498 

Louvois, Frangois-Michel Le Tellier, 
Marquis of, 373-374, 37^, 381, 388, 
389 n., 391, 396 

Louvre, the, 117, 259, 276, 277, 285, 
314, 322, 412 

Low Countries — see Netherlands 

' Loyal Serviteur, Le,' 254 

Luckner, Nicolas, Baron de, 514 

Lugon, Bishopric of, 326 

Lucques, duchy of, 541 

Ludovico il Moro, 224 

Lugdunum, 13. See Lyon 

Lulli, Giovanni Battista, 413 

Luneville, Treaty of, 532 

Lusigny, Baron of, Concini as, 315 

Lutetia, 13, 58. See Paris 

Luther, Martin, 232, 248, 266, 267 

Liitzen, battle of (1632), 341 ; (1813), 

549 
Luxembourg, Fran9ois - Henri de 

Montmorency, Duke of, 378, 391 
Luxembourg, Palace of the, 504, 526, 

564 
Luxembourg-Piney, Duke of, 323 

Luxemburg, city, 380, 396 

Luxemburg, duchy of, 580 

Luynes, Charles d' Albert, Duke of, 

322, 323, 325, 326, 337 
Lyon, 13, 121, 127, 278, 512, 515, 

527, 560 
Lyon, Pierre d'Espinac, Archbishop 

of, 298 
Lyonnais, 172 

Macaui^ay, Thomas, 294, 379 
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 347 
Mackail, J. W., 11 n. 



INDEX 



Madrid, 266, 397, 544, 545 

Madrid, castle of, 234 

Madrid, Treaty of (1526), 234-235, 236 

Mailles, Jacques de, 254 

Maillotins, revolt of the, 186-187 

Main, river, 48 

Maine, county of, 102, 105, 121, 210 

Maine, Charles III, Count of, 210 

Maine, I^ouis-Auguste, Duke of, 419- 
420, 435-436 

Maintenon, Mmede, 382-385, 388, 402 

Mainz, 499 

Mainz, Elector of, 361 

Maison Carrie, 11 

Maisoncelles, 169 

Malesherbes, Chr^tien-Guillaume de 
Lamoignon de, 458, 460, 509, 515 

Malherbe, Pran9ois de, 253, 409 

Mallet du Pan, Jacques, 482, 484, 523 

Malmesbury, James Howard Harris, 
Earl of, 572 

Malouet, Pierre- Victor, Baron, 492 

Malplaquet, battle of, 399 

Malta, 527, 535 

Mandat, Jean-Antoine Galyot, Mar- 
quis of, 503 

Mandats territoriaux, 494 n., 528 

Mansart, Jules Hardouin-, 412 

Mansurah, 127 

Mantes, 64, 294 

Mantua and Montferrat, Duke of, 

339 
Manuel Comnenus, Emperor, 99 
Manuel d'Artillerie of lyOuis-Napo- 

l^on, 566 
Manuzio, Aldo, 248 ' 
Marat, Jean-Paul, 484, 502, 508, 512, 

513 
Marceau, Fran9ois-S^verin Desgra- 

viers, 513 
Marcel, Btienne, 186, i88 
Mardyk, 434 
Marengo, battle of, 532 
Margaret of Austria, 236 
Margaret, St, 175 
Margaret of Scotland, wife of lyouis 

XI, 194 
Margarita Theresa, wife of lycopold I, 

393, 394 
Marguerite of Angoul6me, or of 

Navarre, 239, 251, 256 n., 263, 266 
Marguerite of Burgundy, 209, 222 
Marguerite, wife of Gaston of Orleans, 

336 
Marguerite of Provence, 120 



Marguerite of Valois, 275, 311 
Maria Anna, wife of the Emperor 

Ferdinand III, 393 
Maria Antonia, wife of Maximilian 

of Bavaria, 393 
Maria Theresa, Empress, 442-444, 

445» 451 

Marie of Brabant, 146 

Marie of Burgundy, 208, 209, 227 n. 

Marie of Ivorraine, 236, 244 n. 

Marie de Medicis, 311, 324, 326, 337, 
346 ; regency of, 314-323 ; Riche- 
lieu and, 335-336 ; death, 345 

Marie, Alexandre-Thomas, 564 

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, 
451, 456-457. 460, 463-464, 465, 
466, 486, 488, 491, 495, 499, 500, 

503 » 505. 514 
Marie-Ivouise, wife of Napoleon, 546 
Marie-Th^rese, wife of I^ouis XIV, 

361, 374-375. 383. 384* 393» 394 
Marignano, battle of, 230, 234 
Marigny, Enguerrand de, 148, 153 
Marillac, l/ouis de, 336 
Marillac, Michel de, 336 
Mariotte, Edme, 414 
Marius, Caius, 5 
Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke 

of, 396-397. 399. 400 
Marie, Thomas de, 90 
Marly, 381, 412 
' Marmousets,' 190 
Marne, the, 295, 298 
Marot, Clement, 251-252, 266 
Marriage, under the feudal system, 70 
Marsaglia, battle of, 391 
Marseillaise, origin of the, 502 n. ; 

mentioned, 514 
Marseille, 3, 107. 234, 431 n., 502 n., 

512 
Marseille, Renier, Bishop of, 114 
Marsin, Ferdinand, 396 
Martignac, Jean - Baptiste - Silv^re 

Gaye, Viscount of, 557-558 
Martin, Henri, 200, 312, 342 n., 390 
Martin, Theodore, 573 w., 576 n. 
Mary I, Queen of England, 242, 243 
Mary, Princess (afterward Mary II 

of England), 378 
Mary, wife of I^ouis XII, 228 
Mary of Lorraine — see Marie 
Mary Queen of Scots, 244 n., 261 
Masselin, Jehan, 219 n. 
Massena, Andr6, 532 
Massilia, 3-4. See Marseille 

613 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Matilda, lyady of England, 92, 102 

MattMeu, Pierre, 303 n. 

Maupeou, Ren^-Nicolas-Charles-Au- 

guste de, 451-452, 467, 531 
Maurepas, Jean-Fr^d^ric Phelypeaux, 

Count of, 457-458, 460, 461, 463, 

Maurevel, Charles de lyouviers. Sire 
de, 276 

Maury, Abb^, 492 

Maximilian I, Emperor, 205, 209, 

220, 221, 222, 224, 227 and n., 228, 

231 
Maximilian, Archduke of Austria and 

Emperor of Mexico, 577-578 
Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, 

393 
Mayenne, Charles of I^orraine, Duke 

of, 286, 290-292, 293-294, 295, 296, 
298, 300, 301, 302, 305-306 
Mayenne, Henri, Duke of, 317, 321 
Mayors of the Palace, 23-24, 27 
Mazarin, 'Cardinal, the administra- 
tion of, 346-361 ; favoured by 
Richelieu, 346-347 ; character, 
347-348 ;, the nobles plot against, 
350-351 ; and the Frondes, 352- 

360 ; makes a treaty with England, 

361 ; forms the League of the 
Rhine, 361 ; death, 361 ; Irouis 
XIV's reUance on, 362 ; inculcates 
absolutist ideas in Louis, 363 ; and 
Fouquet, 368 ; and Colbert, 369, 
370 ; and the Huguenots, 386 ; 
mentioned, 375, 376, 387, 390, 412, 

433 

Meaux, 186, 278, 298, 305 

Meaux, the Mystics of, 266 

Medici, Lorenzo de' (' the Magnifi- 
cent'), 247 

Medicis, Catherine de — see Catherine 

Medicis, Marie de — see Marie 

Mediterranean, the, 373, 378, 446 

Melignano, 230 

Melun, 65 

M^moires of Saint-Simon, 421 n, 

Memoires historiques et Instructions 
of Louis XIV, 363 

Menippus, 254 n. 

Mercoeur, Louis, Duke of, 351 

Mercoeur, Philippe-Emmanuel, Duke 
of, 293, 306, 307 

Mercy, Fran9ois de, 349 

Merlin de Thionville, Antoine-Chris- 
tophe, 498 



Merovingians, 15-26, 27 

Merowig, 15, 25 

Mersen, 68 

Mesmes, Henri de, 319 

Messina, 107 

Methodus ad facilem Histoviavum 

Cognitionem of Jean Bodin, 254 
Metz, city, 43, 242, 244, 266, 443, 

495> 513. 581 
Metz, kingdom of, 20 
Metz, Bishopric of, 356 
Meudon, 288 
Meulan, 294 
Meung, Jean de, 140 
Meuse, the, 15 
Mexico, republic of, war with, 577— 

578 
Michaud, Joseph-Frangois, 108 n. 
Michelet, Jules, 247 
'.Middle Kingdom, the,' 49, 205 
Migne, Jacques-Paul, 30 n., 60 n. 
Milan, city, 226, 230, 237, 526, 538 
Milan, duchy of, 226, 227, 228, 230, 

231, 233, 237, 243 
Military College, Paris, 524 
Military School, Brienne, 524 
Minorca, 400^ 446, 462 
Mint, the, 427 
Mi-parties, 2d,i 
Mirabeau, Honors-Gabriel Riquetti, 

Count of, 478, 487, 492, 494, 495, 

508 
Mirabeau, Victor Riquetti, Marquis 

of, 478 
Missi dominici, 41, 123 
Mississippi, the, 428 
' Mississippi BablDle,' 428-431 
Modena, Rinaldo, Duke of, 394 
Moderate Republican party, 522, 533 , 

564 

Mohammed, 29, 38 

Mole, Mathiea, 353, 357 

Mohere, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 405, 
409, 410, 413 

Molinos, Miguel, 418 

MoUwitz, battle of, 443 

Monarchists, 569 

Monarchy, the, consoUdated under 
Louis XI, 210, 213 ; extended over 
Brittany, the last of the great 
fiefs, 222 ; great development of, 
under FranQois I, 241 ; defended 
in Jean Bodin' s De la Repuhlique, 
254 ; Richelieu's work for, 328, 
343 ; effect of the Seven Years' 



614 



INDEX 



War upon, 447 ; fall in prestige of, 
under l/ouis XV, 450, 455 ; decay of, 
471 ; Montesquieu's views on, 479 
Moncontour, battle of, 275 
Mons-en-Pevdle, battle of, 151 
' Monsieur/ royal title, 281 n. 
Monstrelet, Knguerrand de, 194 
' Montague, la,' 498. See Mountain 
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 255, 

256, 257-258 
Montaigu, Jean de, 190 
Montaubana 275, 279, 325, 333 
Montbazon, Duchess of, 351 
Montcalm de Saint- V^ran, I^uis- 

Joseph, Marqiiis of, 446 
Montdidier, 204 
Montereau, 170 
Montespan, Henri-Ivouis, Marquis of, 

382 
Montespan, Mme de, 382-383, 419, 

435 
Montesquieu, Abb6, 492 
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, 

Baron of, 455, 479, 480 
Montfaucon, 146, 153 
Montfort, county of, 199 
Montgomery, Gabriel, Count of, 243 
Montlhery, Hugues de Crecy of, 65, 

90 
Montlhery, battle of, 199 
Montluc, Blaise de, 253 
Montmorency, house of, 335, 338 
Montmorency, Anne, Duke of, 237, 

242, 244, 255, 271, 272, 273, 274 
Montmorency, Henri II, Duke of, 332, 

336, 337 
MontpelHer, Treaty of, 325, 330 
Montpensier, Mile de, wife of Gaston 

d' Orleans, 334 n., 336 
Montpensier, Mile de, daughter of 

Gaston d' Orleans, 360 
Montreal, 447 
Montreuil, Treaty of, 151 
Montserrat, island of, 462 
Moore, Edward, 473 n. 
Moors, 38, 222 
Morat, 206 

Moravia, Duke of, 106 
Moreau, Jean- Victor, 525, 532, 536 
Morellet, Abb^, 478, 480 
Morny, Charles - Auguste - Louis - 

Joseph, Duke of, 574, 578 
Mortemer-en-Bray, battle of, 63 
Moscow, capitulates to Napoleon, 548 
Moselle, the, 15, 349 



Moulins, town, 281 

Mountain, Party of the, 507, 508, 509, 

511, 512, 513, 515, 518, 519. See 

Jacobins 
Municipaliid insurrectionnelle, 489, 

512 
Miinster, Westphalia, 350 
Murat, Joachim, 541, 544 
Muscadins, les, 519 
Muset, Colin, 139 

Museum of Natural History, Paris, 521 
Music, the study of, encouraged by 

Charlemagne, 43 ; during the 

Grand Siecle, 412-413 
Mystics of Meaux, the, 266 

Namatianus, II 

Namur, 397 

Nancy, 206 

Nantes, 513. 5I5 

Nanteuil, Philippe de, 139 

Naples, city, 224, 225, 227, 247, 442 

Naples, kingdom of, 223, 224, 226- 
227, 235, 394, 544. 547; ill the 
Third Coalition, 541 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 376, 520, 524- 
553. 555, 558, 559, 560, 567, 568, 
574, 577 ; early years, 524 ; rise 
into prominence, 525 ; campaign 
in Italy (1796-97), 525-526, 528 ; 
expedition to Egypt, 526-527 ; 
overthrows the Directory, 528- 
529 ; becomes First Consul, 530 ; 
routs the Austrians at Marengo, 
531 ; made Consul for life, 533 ; 
his administration as First Consul, 
533-535 ; plots against his life, 
534, 536 ; prepares to invade Eng- 
land, 535, 540 ; and the execution 
of the Diike of Enghien, 536-537 ; 
made Emperor, 537, 538 ; crowned 
King of Italy, 538 ; forms a new 
nobility and keeps royal state, 539- 
540 ; campaign against Austria 
and Russia — ^Austerlitz, 541 ; and 
the Fourth Coalition — ^the Treaty 
of Tilsit, 542-543 ; at the zenith of 
his power, 543 ; struggle with Eng- 
land, 543-552 ; the System, 543- 
544, 548 ; the Peninsular War, 
. 544-545, 546, 548 ; and the Fifth 
Coalition — ^the Treaty of Schon- 
bnmn, 545 ; marriage with Marie- 
I^uise, 546 ; extent of his Empire, 
and its instability, 546-547 ; the 

615 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



invasion of Russia, 54^549 ; and 
the Sixth Coalition, 549-550 ; 
forced to abdicate, and sent to 
Elba, 550 ; escapes from Elba, 
551 ; ' the Hundred Days,' 551 ; 
Waterloo, 551 ; death, 552 ; his 
place in history, 552-553 1 cha- 
racter, 573 ; Napoleon III com- 
pared with, 573 

Napoleon III, 8 n., 571, 572-581 ; 
his character, 573-574, 576 ; his 
absolute rule, 574-575 ; material 
progress of the country under his 
rule, 575-576 ; his foreign policy, 
576-578 ; and Italy, 576-577 .* and 
Mexico, 577-578 ; concedes con- 
stitutional government, 579 ; and 
the Franco- Prussian War, 580- 
581 ; death, 581 n. See also Bona- 
parte, Prince Charles-Iyouis 

Narbo Martins, 4 

Narbonne, 4, 29 

Nassau, 580 

National Assembly, 486-488 

National Convention, the, 504, 505, 
506-521' 525, 531 

National Debt, initiated under Fran- 
9ois I, 242 ; Law and, 427 ; in- 
creased by the War of the Austrian 
Succession, 444 

National Guard, 489, 491, 492, 496, 
503, 512, 518, 519, 559, 562, 565 

National Workshops, 564, 565 

Navarre, 147, 228, 233, 234 

Navy, practically created by Riche- 
lieu, 344 ; value of, in the American 
War of Independence, 462 

Nazareth, 129 

Necker, Jacques, 461-463, 464, 468, 
486, 488. 489. 490, 493 

Neerwinden, battle of (1693), 39^ » 
(1793), 510, 559 

Nelson, Horatio, 527, 532, 541 

Nemours, house of, 210, 223 

Nemours, Charles of Savoy, Duke of, 
293, 296, 297 

Nemours, Jacques, Duke of , 200,203, 
210 

Nesle, 204 

Nesle, Blondel de, 139 
Nesle, Simon de, 124 
Netherlands, 38, 82, 227, 237, 242, 
248, 274, 292, 296, 298, 299, 307, 
339. 348, 361, 378, 39i» 392. 395, 
396, 397. 400, 417, 501, 526 

616 



Netherlands, Austrian, 400 
Netherlands, Spanish, 374-375. 376, 

396 
Neufchatel, principality, 541 
Neustria, 22-24, 27, 28, 29, 46 
Nevers, Charles, Duke of, 317, 321, 340 
Nevers, l/ouis de Gonzague, Duke of, 

293 

Nevis, 462 

Newfotmdland, 400 > 

New Orleans, 427 n. 

New Testament, 266, 417 

Ney, Marshal, 542, 546, 555 

Nicaea, 79, 83. See Nice 

Nicaea, Council of (325), 18 _ 

Nice, city, 237. See also Nicaea 

Nice, province, 510 ; annexed by 
France, 577 

Nicole, Pierre, 416 

Niemen, the, 542, 548 

Nile, the, 127 

Nile, battle of the, 527 

Nimeguen, Treaty of, 378, 379, 380 

Nimes, 4, 11, 29, 279 

Niort, 382 

Noailles, Adrien-Maurice, Duke of, 
423-424, 426 

Noailles, Cardinal de, 417 

Nobles, Ivouis I and, 47 ; rise of the 
feudal nobility under the Karlings, 
54-56 ; Hugues Capet and, 57-58 ; 
the anarchy of feudalism under 
Philippe I, 64-66 ; the institution 
of feudalism, 67-74; I^ouis VI 
and, 89-92 ; the feudal nobility 
and the communal movement, 92- 
95 ; lyouis VII and, 97 ; Philippe 
n and, 103-104 ; Blanche of 
Castile and, 1 19-120 ; I^uis IX 
and, 120, 122-123 ; Philippe III 
and, 145, 146 ; feudal reaction in 
the later Capetian period, 153- 
154 ; and the growth of middle- 
class influence, 190-191 ; decline 
of the feudal nobility in the period 
of the Hundred Years' War, 191- 
192 ; I^ouis XI and, 196-201, 214, 
217 ; reaction among, during 
Charles VIII' s reign, 217 ; Charles 
VIII and, 223 ; Francois I's supre- 
macy over, 241 ; Henri IV's pacific 
policy with, and its results, 306, 
316 ; conspire against Henri IV, 
3 10-3 1 1 ; lose ground under Henri 
IV, 316; revolts of, against the 



INDEX 



Regent Marie de M^dicis, 316-317, 
320-321 ; in the States-General of 
1614, 318, 319 ; side with Marie 
de M^dids against lyouis XIII, 
> 323 ; Richelieu and, 326, 328, 
333-339. 342-343: plot against 
Mazarin, 350-351 ; in the First 
Fronde, 355-357 ; the Fronde of 
the Nobles, 357-360 ; rise of the 
noblesse de cour : the salons, 404 ; 
Philippe of Orleans attempts to 
restore the nobility to predomi- 
nance in political affairs, 422 ; 
suffer in prestige in connexion with 
I^aw's ' System,' 432 ; supporters 
of autocracy and the Old Regime, 
471-472 ; exempt from many 
taxes, 476 ; in the States-General 
of 1789, 485, 486, 487, 488 ; titles 
of nobility abolished by the Con- 
stitution of 1 79 1, 492 ; emigration 
of the nobles during the Revolu- 
tionary period, 499 ; the emigres 
threatened with confiscation by 
the Ivegislative Assembly, 500 ; 
Napoleon's new nobility, 539-540 
Noblesse d'epee, 318 w., 422 
Noblesse de robe, 318 n., 422, 423 
Nogaret, Guillaume de, 148 
Nogent, Guibert de, 82 n., 95 
Nordlingen, battle of (1645), 349 
Normandy, 56, 63, 68. 69, 91, 92, 93, 
102, no, III; 121, 128, 160, 170, 
199, 201, 204, 205, 218, 291, 294, 

299, 321, 356 
Normandy, Charles, Duke of, 200. 

See Berry, Charles, Duke of (i) 
Normandy, Richard II, Duke of, 93 
Normandy, Robert II, Duke of 

(' Courte-Heuse'), 64, 83, 91 
Normandy, William, Duke of — see 

William the Conqueror 
Normans, 53, 64, 78 
Norsemen, settlement of, in France, 

52-53 
North, Sir Thomas, 251 n. 
Notabilites communales, departemen- 

tales, and nationales, 531 
Notre-Dame. bridge of, 295 
Notre-Dame, cathedral of, 118, 143, 

305> 354. 515, 538 
Notre-Dame, school of, 135 
Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau's, 484 
Nova Scotia, 400 
Noviant, Jean de, 190 



Noyon Cathedral, 143 
Nureddin, 100 

Observatory, Paris, 412, 414 

Octroi, 477 

Oder, the, 446 

Odo, or Budes, Count of Paris, Duke 
of France, 50-51, 52 

Odyssey, the, 250 

Ohio, 445 

Oise, department, 57 

Oise, river, 295 

Old Regime, the, 255, 319, 3^7* 457. 
507. 519, 521. 539, 555, 561 ; end 
of the, 467-468, 470 et seq. 

Opera, rise of the, 413 

Opera House, Paris, 534 

Orange, Roman arch at, ii 

Orateur dii Peuple, L', 518 

Oratory, the, Paris, 417 

Orchies, 151 

Ordericus Vitalis, gi n. 

Ordre naturel et essentiel des Sociitis 
politiques, 478 

Organisation du Travail of I^ouis 
Blanc, 562 j 

Orlando, or Roland, 38 

Orleanais, 172 

Orleanists, 560, 569 

Orleans, city, 43, 60, 62, 187, 228, 
270. 273, 278, 305 ; siege of (1428), 
i73-i74> 176, 177-178, 181 

Orleans, kingdom of, 20 

Orleans, house of, 230, 438 

Orleans, Charles, Duke of , 168,187, 287 

Orleans, Ferdinand, Duke of, 469 

Orleans, Gaston, Duke of, 317, 334, 

^ 336-337' 338, 360, 469 

Orleans, I^ouis of France, Duke of, 
167-168, 226 «., 230, 287 

Orleans, lyouis, Duke of (afterward 
l/ouis XII), 200, 210, 216, 217, 
219, 220, 221, 223, 225. See also 
Louis XII 

Orleans, I/Ouis-Philippe Duke of, 469 

Orleans, Louis- Philippe Duke of 
(afterward King) — see Louis- 
Philippe 

Orleans, Louis- Philippe- Joseph, Duke 
of (' %alite'), 469, 489. 508, 514,559 

Orleans, Philippe I, Duke of, 469 

Orleans, Philippe II, Duke of (Re- 
gent), 419-437. 438, 439, 469 

Ormesson, Olivier III Lefdvre d', 



371 «. 



617 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Orsini, Felice, 575 

Osnabriick, 350 

Oster Ric, 23 

Otho IV, Emperor, iii, 112 

Oudenarde, battle of, 397 

Ovid, 43. 252 . 

Painting, during the Renaissance 
period, 260 ; during the Grand 
Siecle, 412 
' Paix Perpetuelle, la,' 231 
Palace of Justice, Paris, 353 
Palace School, Charlemagne's, 43 
Palais- Royal, Paris, 404, 421, 488 
Palatinate, the, 377, 391 
Palestine, 63, 77, 78, 81, 85, 86, 88, 
98, 99, 100, 107, 109, 127, 129, 139, 

144. 155 

Palissy, Bernard, 258, 260 

Panfagruel of Rabelais, 256 

Pantheon, the, Paris, 483 
-Papacy, the, and the Franks, 32-34 ; 
gaih in prestige of, as a consequence 
of the Crusades, 87 ; Philippe IV' s 
quarrel with, 148-149 ; the royal 
authority gains against, 193 ; the 
Concordat of 15 16, 231 

Papal States, the, 532 ; aimexed by 
Napoleon, 544, 545 

Parc-aux-Cerfs, 449 

Par^, Ambroise, 258 

Paris, 13, 19, 61, 64, 65, 108, 112, 
124, 125, 127, 128, 136, 137, 138, 
143, 149, 154, 160, 165, 167, 168, 
170, 178, 179, 182, 185, 186, 187, 
188, 195, 197, 199, 200, 201, 237, 
243, 246, 247, 248, 259, 260, 268, 
270, 271, 272, 274, 276, 277, 278, 
280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 
289, 291, 292, 294, 299, 300, 301, 
305, 309, 312, 314, 318, 319, 321, 
322, 323, 326, 331, 341, 348, 352 
and n., 354-355. 35^357. 358-360, 
382, 405, 408, 411, 413, 414, 415, 
423, 428, 429, 438, 440, 453. 457 n., 
458, 461, 466, 467, 473, 475, 483, 
486, 488, 493, 494, 495, 502 and n., 
504, 512, 515, 517, 519, 520, 523, 
524, 526, 527, 528, 529 n., 532, 
534. 549. 550. 551. 552, 558, 560, 
562, 570, 571 ; sacked by Norse- 
men, 52 ; early history, 58 ; rise 
into prominence, 58-60 ; Philippe- 
Auguste's improvements in, 117- 
118 ; besieged by Huguenots and 

6x8 



Royalists, 286 ; pillaged by Hugue- 
nots, 292 ; besieged by Henri IV, 
295-298 ; during the Revolution, 
488-491 ; under the Reign of 
Terror, 514-518 ; under the Second 
Republic, 564-565 ; improved 
under Napoleon III, 575; the 
Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, 576 ; 
siege of (1870-71), 581 

Paris, Jean-Frangois de Gondi, Arch- 
bishop of, 355 

Paris, Pierre V, Bishop of, 298 

Paris, Coimt of (I^ouis-Philippe- 
Albert of Orleans), 469, 562, 563 

Paris, Deacon, 440-441 

Paris, Guild of, 97 

Paris, kingdom of, 20 

Paris, Parliament of — see Parlia- 
ment 

Paris, Treaty of (1258), 121 ; (1763), 
447 ; (1778), 462 : (May 30, 1814), 
550 ; (August 2, 1815), 552 

Paris, University of, 118, 135-136, 
138, 187, 197, 215, 246, 414 

Parisii, 58 

' Parlements Maupeou,' 453 

Parliament of Bordeaux, 197, 214 

Parliament of Brittany, 198, 452 

Parliament of Dijon, 214 

Parliament of Grenoble, 194 

Parliament of Paris, 145, 198, 200, 
268, 278, 286, 300, 302, 320, 346, 
352 n., 358, 359, 360, 378, 415 
n., 435, 440, 485, 509 ; estab- 
lished, 125 ; growth in power of, 
151, 154 ; lyouis XI defies, 197 ; 
l/ouis XI restricts the functions 
of, 214 ; affirms FrauQois I's 
supremacy above the law, 241 ; 
deprived of rights and privileges 
by Frangois I, 241 ; hostile to the 
Reformation, 266 ; refuses to 
register the Edict of Nantes, 308 ; 
proclaims the regency of Marie 
de M^dicis in excess of its powers, 
314 ; forbidden to take cognizance 
of public affairs by Richelieu, 343- 
344 ; opposes taxation imposed by 
the Sieur d'i^mery — ^the Confer- 
ence of St I^ouis, 352-354 ; cha- 
racter of the Parliament, 353 ; the 
Parliamentary Fronde, 354-357, 
359 ; secures a measure of political 
power (Treaty of Rueil), 357 ; for- 
bidden to take part in affairs of 



INDEX 



State, 360 ; overridden by I^ouis 
XIV, 363 ; annuls Louis XIV's 
will, 419-420 ; the Regent Philippe 
of Orleans restores a privilege to, 
420 ; checked by the Regent 
Philippe, 423 ; opposed to Law's 
Bank, 426 ; conflict with Louis 
XIV, and suppressed, 452-453 ; 
restored, 460 ; Louis XVI' s struggle 
with, 465-467 ; condemned Vol- 
taire's Le/^y^5j5)Ai/oso^Aig'Mes, 481 n. 

Parliament of Toulouse, 197, 452 n. 

ParHaments, suppression of, by Mau- 
peou, 452-453 ; restored, 460 ; 
local, aboHshed under the Con- 
stitution of 1 79 1, 493 

Parma, 442, 535 

Parma, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of, 
296, 298, 300 

Parma, Ferdinand, Duke of, 535 

Particelli, Michel, Sieur d'l^mery, 
351-352. 353 

Partition, Treaties of {1698, 1700), 

394 
Pas-de-Calais, 209, 233, 540 
Pascal, Blaise, 414, 416, 441 
Pasquier, l^tienne, 254 
Passaro, Cape, battle of, 435 
Pastoureaux revolt, in Louis IX' s 

reign, 128 ; in Philippe V's reign, 

155 

Pat ay, 178 

Paul III, Pope, 237, 267 

Paul IV, Pope, 242 

Paulette, tax, 318 

Pavia, 234, 266 

Pays-de-Caux, 300 

Peace. For the various treaties, see 

under the specific name of each 
' Peace of God,' the, 65 
' Peace of Monsieur,' 281, 282 
Peasantry, condition of, under the 

Old Regime, 473-474 ; discontent 

among, under the Second Republic, 

565-566 
Peasants' Crusade, 81-82 
Pedro III, King of Aragon, 223 n. 
Pellisson-Fontanier, Paul, 363, 407 n. 
Peninsular War, 543-545. 54^, 548, 549 
Pepys' Diary, 374 n. 
Perche, 210 
Pdre Duchesne, Le, 512 
P^^xe, Hardouin de Beaumont de, 

295 w., 305 n., 416 
P^rigord, loi, 121, 162 



Perigord, Count of, 60 

Perkins, J. B., 447 n. 

P^ronne, 26, 202, 315 

Perpignan, 147 

Perrault, Charles, 410, 412 

Perrault, Claude, 412 

Perrin, Pierre, 413 

Persigny, Jean- Gilbert- Victor FiaUn, 

574 
Peter of Fontaines, 124 
Peter the Hermit (Peter of Amiens), 

81-82, 84, 98 
Peter, St, 37 w, 
Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt 

Barl of, 397 
Petersburg, 548 
Petion de Villeneuve, Jerome, 492 

498, 502, 503, 514 n. 
Petit-Dutaillis, C, 217^., 219W. 
Petit de JuUeville, L., 180 n. 
Petit Trianon, 464 
Petrarch, 139 
Philip II of Spain, 242-243, 272, 273^ 

274, 275, 276, 278, 282, 283, 290» 

292, 293, 296, 298, 299, 301, 302, 

306-307, 311 
Philip III of Spain, 316, 393 
Philip IV of Spain, 374, 393, 394, 469 
Philip V of Spain, 393, 397, 398, 399, 

400, 419 n., 433, 434, 435 
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ,^ 

167, 287 
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 

170, 171, 173, 179, 182, 195-196. 

198 
Philippa of Hainaut, wife of Edward 

III of England, 161 
Philippe I, 63-64, 82, 89, 91, 155, 

157 

Philippe II (' Philippe- Auguste'), 60, 
103-118, 122, 123, 157, 217, 415; 
and the feudal nobility, 103-104^ 
116; struggle with Henry II of 
England, 104-105 ; and the Third 
Crusade and Richard I of England, 
1 06-1 10 ; and King John of Eng- 
land, 110-112, 116 n. ; and the 
crusade against the Albigenses, 
114 ; France's progress during his 
reign, 116; and the Church, 116; 
his administration, 117 ; and the 
commimal movement, 117 ; im- 
proves Paris, 1 1 7-1 1 8 ; death, 118 

Philippe III ('le Hardi'), 145-147, 
157, 287 

619 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Philippe IV (' le Bel'), 145, 147-152, 
153. 155, 156, 157' 342; import- 
ance of his reign, 147; quarrel 
with the Papacy, 148-149 ; sup- 
presses the order of the Knights 
Templars, 1^49 ; summons burghers 
to his Council, 150 ; foreign policy, 
1 50-1 5 1 ; improvements in ad- 
ministration during his reign, 151 ; 
character of his rule, 152 ; death, 

152 
Philippe V (' le I,ong '), 153, 154, 155, 

156, 157 
Philippe VI, 156, 157, 158-161, 185, 

187, 188, 192, 193, 287 
Philippe, Duke of Anjou (afterward 

Philip V of Spain), 393, 394, 395- 

See also Philip V 
Philippe, son of Marie of Burgundy, 

209, 227 n. 
Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, 469 
Phipppe II, Duke of Orleans (Regent), 

419-437, 438, 439, 469 
Philippeaux, Pierre, 516 
Philipsburg, 441 
Philoiophes, the, 479-480 
Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 136- 

138 ; during the Grand Sidcle, 414 
Physiocrats, the, 477-478 
Piacenza, 80, 247 
Picard, Jean, 414 
Picardy, 203, 208, 209, 242, 281, 291, 

306, 323, 341, 488 
Pichegru, Charles, 536 
Piedmont, 237, 397, 526, 535 
Pigafetta, Filippo, 297 n. 
Pilon, Germain, 260 
Pinerolo, 340, 369 
Pippin I of Aquitaine, 47, 48, 55 
Pippin II of Aquitaine, 49, 55 
Pippin of Heristal, 24, 26, 27-29, 33 
Pippin of Italy, 46, 55 
Pippin of lyanden, 24 n., 27, 33 
Pippin the Short, 31-34 
Pisa, 225, 247 
Piscina, 346 
Pisseleu, Anne de. Duchess of 

;©tampes, 241 
Pitt, William, the elder, 446, 449 
Pitt, William, the younger, 540 
Pius VII, Pope, 538 
Pius IX, Pope, 568 
Place de Greve, Paris, 322, 335, 490 
Place lyOuis-le-Grand, Paris, 425 
Place l/ouis XV, Paris, 510 

620 



Place de la Revolution, Paris, 510 

Place Royale, Paris, 335 

' Plaine,' the, in the National Con- 
vention, 506, 507, 531 

Plains of Abraham, 447 

Plectrudis, wife of Pippin of Heristal, 
29 

* Pleiade,' the, 252-253 

Plessis-les-Tours, 211, 286 

Poetry, in the medieval period, 138- 
141 ; of the Renaissance, 251- 

253 
Poissy, 271 

Poitiers, 20, 29, 30, 162, 188 
Poitiers, battle of, 162, 164, 191 
Poitou, loi, no. III, 118, 121, 128, 

162, 165, 280, 316, 326 
Poland, 280, 441, 442, 443, 451, 542, 

548, 564 
Polignac, Prince of, 558 
Politiques, the, 254, 280-281, 283, 

295. 30O' 301 
Polixandre of Gomberville, 406 
Polytechnic School, Paris, 521 
Pomone of Robert Cambert, 413 
Pompadour, Jeanne- Antoinette, Mar- 
quise of, 448-449, 451, 458, 477 
Pondicherry, 392, 447 
Pontarlier, 206 
Ponte-Corvo, 541 
Pontoise, 199, 294 
Port- Roy al-des-Champs, 415 
Port- Royal de Paris, 415, 417 
Porta Nigra, at Treves, 1 1 
Porte Saint- Antoine, Paris, 360 
Portugal. 544-545, 546; in the 
Fifth Coalition, 545 ; in the Sixth 
Coalition, 549 
Postal service, initiated by Louis XI, 

215 

Pot, Philippe, Seigneur de la Roche, 
218-219 

Pothinus, Bishop of Lugdunum, 13 

Poussin, Nicolas, 412 n. 

Pragmatic Sanction : (i) Of 1269, 
122 n. (2) Of 1438, 193 ; revoked 
by Louis XI, 197 ; the revival of, 
demanded, 219 ; abolished, 231. 
(3) Of 1713, 442-443 

Prague, 191 n. 

Prague, Treaty of (1866), 580 

' Praguerie,' the, 191, 194 

Precieuses ridicules, Les, 405 

Prelude, Wordsworth's, 521 n. 

Presburg, Treaty of, 541, 542 



INDEX 



President, instituted under the Second 
Republic, 566 

Press, held under censorship by 
Richelieu, 344 ; freedom of, secured 
by the Constitution of 1791, 492 ; 
gagged by the Directory, 528 ; 
Bonaparte and, 534, 548 ; censor- 
ship of, under Louis XVIII, 556 ; 
restricted by Charles X, 557 ; free- 
dom of, restored by Martignac, 
557 ; censorship of, restored by 
Charles X, 558 ; liberty of, restored 
under Louis- Philippe, 559 ; con- 
trolled under Louis - Napoleon, 
568 ; controlled under the Second 
Empire, 574 

Pretender, Old, 434, 435 

PrStres insermentis , 534 

Prdvots, Philippe- Auguste and, 117 ; 
Louis IX and, 123 w. 

Prie, Mme de, 438, 439 

Primaticcio, Francesco, 260 

Prime Minister, Louis XIV on the, 
368 ; Louis XV decides to govern 
without, 443 

Prince Consort, Albert Edward, 573, 

576 

Prince Imperial, 579, 581 

Princesse de CUves of Mme de La 
Fayette, 407 

Printing, protected by Louis XI, 
215 ; the beginning of, in France, 
248 

Privy Council — see Conseil d']§tat 

Projet de Constitution of Louis- 
Napoleon, 566 

Protection, a system of, instituted by 
Colbert, 372-373 

Protestantism, Henri II and, 242- 
243 ; the Wars of Religion and the 
Reformation, 261-308 ; Catherine 
de Medicis and, 265 ; Henri IV's 
struggle with the League, 290-306 ; 
Henry IV's apostasy, 302-305 ; 
the Edict of Nantes, 307-308, 324, 
325 ; Louis XIV and, 387, 390, 
418 ; Turgot and, 459 ; Napoleon 
and, 534 

Provence, 4,29, 46, 50, 57 w., 120, 138, 
210, 218, 234, 237, 240, 356, 431 n. 

Provence, Louis, Count of (afterward 
Louis XVIII), 466, 495 n., 500, 
528 n., 550. See Louis XVIII 

Provence, Raymond Berenger IV, 
Count of, 120 



Provincia, 5 

Prussia, recognized as an independent 
Power, 400 ; in the War of the 
Austrian Succession, 443, 444 ; in 
the Seven Years' War, 445, 447 ; 
shares in the partition of Poland 
(1770), 451 ; at war with France 
(1792), 503 ; joins in a coalition 
against France (1793), 510 ; recog- 
nizes the Republican Government, 
519 ; in the Fourth Coalition, 542 ; 
in the Sixth Coalition, 549 ; the 
Franco-Prussian War, 580-581 ; 
mentioned, 441, 449, 481, 576 

Psalms, the, 266 

Puget, Pierre, 412 

Puiset, Hugues du, 90 

Pyrenees, 15, 18, 38, 102 

Pyrenees, Treaty of the, 361, 375 

QUADRTJPI^E Al^IylANCK (1718), 435 

Quarantaine le roy, 117, 122 

Quarrel of the Ancients and the 

Moderns, 410 
Quebec, 310, 447 
Queen's Confessor, 123 n., 130 
Quentin Durward, 202 
Quercy, 121 

Quesnay, Fran9ois, 477-478, 480 
Quesnel, Pasquier, 417 
Quiberon, 519 
Quietism, 418 

RabkI/AIS, Fran9ois, 256-257, 258 

Racine, Jean, 408, 410 

Railways, developed under Napoleon 

in, 575 
Rambouillet, 463 
Rambouillet, castle of, 238 
Rambouillet, Catherine, Marquise of. 

404-405 
Rambouillet, Hotel de (salon), 404, 

406 
Rameau, Jean- Philippe, 413 
Ramillies, battle of, 397 
Ramus, Peter, 258 
Raoul, or Rudulf, King of France, 

51 
Raoul, steward to Philippe III, 146 
Rasp ail, Frangois- Vincent, 565 
Rastadt, Treaty of, 400 
Ratbod, King of Frisia, 28 
Ratisbon, Truce of, 380 
Raucoux, battle of, 444 
Ravaillac, Frangois, 312 

621 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Raymond Berenger IV, Count of 

Provence, 120 
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, 83 
Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, 

114-115 
Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, 

115-116, 120 
R6, island of, 331-332 
Reason, the Cult of, 515. 517 
Rebecco, battle of, 234 
Recherches de la France of Pasquier, 

254 
Reformation, the, relation of the 

Renaissance to, 258 ; beginnings 

and development of, in France, 

266 et seq. ; mentioned, 86, 255. 

See also Protestantism 

Reformistes, 562 

Regale, the, 385 

Regency, of Blanche of Castile, 119- 
120 ; of Anne of Beaujeu, 216-223 ; 
of Catherine de Medicis, 269-273 ; 
of Marie de Medicis, 314-323 ; of 
PhiUppe of Orleans, 419-437 

Regensburg, 107 

Reichenau, monastery of, 43 

Reichshofen, battle of, 581 

Reichstadt, Duke of, 560 

Reign of Terror, 505, 511, 513-518, 
521 

Reims, 17, 43, 91, 119, 167, 178, 182, 
187, 195, 197, 211, 280, 305, 370, 
436 

Reims Cathedral, 143, 178 

Reims, Adalb^ron d'Ardenne, Arch- 
bishop of, 51 

Reims, Remigius, Bishop of, 17 

Reims, Renaud III of Chartres, 
Archbishop oft 178 

Religion : Druidism in Gaul, 9, 10 ; 
the Roman reHgion introduced into- 
Gaulu 10 ; the beginnings of Chris- 
tianity in Gaul, 13; the Franks 
and Christianity, 16-18 ; the Re- 
formation and the Wars of Religion, 
261 et seq. ; religion during the 
Grand SiMe, 414-418; Chris- 
tianity abolished by the National 
Convention, 515 ; atheism pro- 
scribed, 517 ; Robespierre's new 
religion, 517 ; Bonaparte's atti- 
tude to religion, 534 ; Catholicism 
deprived of its position as the 
State religion, 559. See Chris- 
tianity and Church 

622 



Renaissance, the Crusades a remote 
cause of, 88 ; the ' springtime ' of, 
134-144 ; Frangois I and, 239, 
245 ; its development in France, 
245-260 ; checked by the Hundred 
Years' War, 246 ; the literature of, 
250-258 ; relation of the Reforma- 
tion to, 258 ; the art of, 259-260 ; 
mentioned, 265 

Renaissance style in architecture, 
259-260 

Rennes, 222 

Republic, the First, 506-537, 559 ; 
converted into the Kmpire, 537 

Republic, the Second, 563-571 

Republic, the Third, 554 

Republicans, 529, 534, 550, 555, 560, 
566, 569, 570, 578 

Restoration, First, 550 ; Second, 552, 

554. 55^ 

Rethel, 359 

Retz, Cardinal de, 347 n., 351, 352, 
355, 356, 357 *^-> 359, 360 

RSveries politiques of lyOuis-Napol^on, 
566 

Revocation of the Kdict of Nantes, 
388-390 

Revolt of Islam, Shelley's, 521 «. 

Revolution of 1789, 86, 150, 185, 231, 
318, 345, 403, 470 et seq., 555, 557, 
559, 568 ; the social factors produc- 
ing, 470-477 ; the intellectual fore- 
runners of, 477-484 ; attitude of 
the Kuropean Powers to, 449-500 ; 
organization of the Revolutionary 
Government, 511 ; the Reign of 
Terror, 505, 511, 513-518; the 
Grand Terror, 516-517 ; the fall 
of Robespierre, 517-518 ; the 
Congress of Vienna seeks to undo 
the work of, 550-551 ; gave Napo- 
leon his opportunity, 552 

Revolution of July 1830, 558, 560 

Revolution of February 1848, 562, 
563, 566, 567, 572 

Revolution, Festival of the, 515 «. 

Rewbell, Jean-Baptiste, 523, 528 

Rhine, the, 5, 6, 14, 15, 17, 312, 341, 

349, 376, 378, 396. 397, 441, 446, 
510, 525, 526, 532, 536, 542, 545, 

549, 551, 576, 580 
Rhine, lyeague of the, 361, 376 
Rhone, the, 48, 193, 477 
Richard I of EJngland, 106-109, no, 

139 



INDEX 



Richard II of England, i66 

Richard III of England, 220 

Richard, Prince (afterward Richard I 
of England), 105 

Richardson, Samuel, 473 n. 

Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis de, 
Cardinal, 320, 325, 32&-345, 346, 
351, 368, 376, 390, 407 ; and the 
nobles, 326, 328, 333-339, 342, 343, 
350 ; becomes Cardinal, 326 ; head 
of the Council, 326 ; his influence 
over lyouis XIII, 326-328 ; policy 
and programme, 328-345 ; absolu- 
tism his ideal, and his work for it, 
328, 342-343. 344 ; liis attempts to 
crush the Huguenots as a poHtical 
power, 328, 329-333, 339. 34°, 342. 

343. 386 ; tries to suppress duel- 
ling, 334-335 ; and Marie de 
Medicis, 335-336 ; his foreign policy 
339-341 ; results of his adminis- 
tration, 341-344 ; ignored the 
States-General, controlled the Par- 
liament of Paris, and censored the 
press, 343-344 ; tampered with 
the administration of justice, 344 ; 
built up the army and navy, 344 ; 
increased the burden of taxation, 

344. 351 ; character, 344-345 : 
death, 345, 348, 350; favours 
Mazarin, 346-347 ; contrasted with 
Mazarin, 347-348 ; his foreign 
policy carried on by Mazarin, 350 ; 
his disastrous legacy of debt, taxa- 
tion, and discontent, 351 

Richelieu, I^ouis - Fran9ois - Armand 
du Plessis, Duke of, 446 

Rickaby, J., 136 n. 

Right, the, in the I^egislative Assem- 
bly, 497-498 ; in the National 
Convention, 507-508 

Ripuarian Franks, 15, 17, 19 

Riviera, Italian, 532 

Rivi^e — see I^a Riviere 

Rivoli, battle of, 526 

Robert I, 51 

Robert II (* le Pieux '), 61-62, 93, 157 

Robert, Count of Artois, 159 

Robert II, Count of Flanders, 83 

Robert II, Duke of Normandy, 64, 

83, 91 
Robert, son of Robert II of France, 62 
Robespierre, Maximilien-Marie-Isidore 
de, 484, 492, 508, 509, 512, 513, 
514. 515, 516, 517-518, 525 



Rochefoucauld — see La Rochefou- 
cauld 

Rocroi, 348, 359 ~~^~- 

Rodney, George Brydges, 462 

Roederer, Pierre-I^ouis, Count, 492 

Roemer, Olaiis, 414 

Rohan, house of, 323 ^ 

Rohan, I/Ouis-Rene-]^douard, Car- 
dinal de, 457 n. 

Rohan, Marguerite, Duchess of, 332 

* Roi Citoyen,' 561 

' Roi des Halles,' 356 

' Roi Soleil,' 367 

Rois faineants, 23-24 

Roland, or Hroland, 38 

Roland de la Platiere, Jean-Marie, 
501, 502, 504, 514 w. 

Roland, Mme, 501, 502, 514, 523 

RoUo, 52 

Romagna, revolt of the, 566 

Roman Catholic Church — see Church 

Roman d'aventure, the, 408 

Roman bourgeois of Furetiere, 406- 
407 

Roman comique of Scarron, 406 

Roman ct la mode, the, 406 

Roman de Renart, 141 

Roman de la Rose, 140 

Romans, in Gaul, 3-12 ; power of, 
in Gaul, finally overthrown at 
Soissons, 16 

Rome : (i) The city, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 32, 
34, 37, 81, no, 121, 224, 235, 247, 
279, 346, 546, 568 ; occupied by 
Napoleon, 544. (2) The Papsd 
See, 232, 235, 299, 318, 386, 416^ 

417 
Romorantin, Edict of, 269 

Romulus Augustulus, 12 

Roncesvalles, 38 

Ronsard, Pierre de, 252, 253 

Rooke, Sir George, 396 

Rosny, Baron of — see Sully, Duke 
of 

Rossbach, battle of, 445 

Roturiers, 72-73 

Roucher, Jean-Antoine, 514 

Rouen, no, 160, 167, 174, 183, 197, 
198, 199, 200, 259, 299, 301, 305 ; 
Jeanne Dare tried and executed 
at, 179, 180, 181 ; siege of, during 
the Wars of Religion, 273 ; mas- 
sacre of the Huguenots at, 278 

Rouen, Frangois III de Harlay, 
Archbishop of, 362 



623 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Rouget de Lisle, Claude- Joseph, 

502 ft. 
Rouher, Eugene, 574, 579 
Rousseau, Jean- Jacques, 452 n., 480, 

498, 501, 508, 517 ; his work and 

ideals, 482-484 ; contrasted with 

Voltaire, 482 ; his influence upon 

the Revolution, 482, 483 
Roussillon, 210, 349 
Rouvray, 174 
Royal domain, the, 158, 192-193, 

218; growth of, under Louis XI, 

210 
Royal towns, 126 
Royalists, 533, 534. 535, 536-537. 

555. 556 
Royce, J., 414 n. 
Roye, 204 
Rudolf, or Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, 

51 
Rue^ de 1 'Bcole de Medecin, Paris, 

494 w. 
Rue Quincampoix, Paris, 428, 429, 

430 
Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 494 n. 
Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, Paris, 

404 
Rue Vivienne, Paris, 428, 430 
Rueil, 356 

Rueil, Treaty of, 357, 358 
Russia, 441, 445, 446, 451, 545, 557 ; 

in the Third Coalition, 540 ; in 

the Fourth Coalition, 542-543 ; 

Napoleon's invasion of, 548-549 ; 

in the Sixth Coalition, 549 
Rutebeuf, trouvere, 141 
Ruze, Henri Coif&er de. Marquis of 

Cinq-Mars, 337-338 
Ryswick, Treaty of, 392, 394 



SABi^i;, Treaty of, 221, 222 

Sadowa, 580 

Saint- Andr^, J acques d' Albon de, 244, 

271 
Saint- Andre, plain of, 294 
St Antoine, 168 

Saint- Antoine, faubourg, Paris, 502 
Saint-Aubin-du-Courmier, battle of, 

221 
Saint- Aubin-du-Courmier, Treaty of, 

120 
St Augustine, 44, 415 
St Catherine, 175 



Sainte-Chapelle, 143-144 
Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Treaty of, 52, 

53 
Saint-Cloud, 288, 289, 290, 291, 297, 

359, 463. 529 
Saint-Cyran, M. de, 416 
Saint-Denis, 274, 305 
Saint-Denis, abbey of, 58, 71, 146, 

302 
Saint-Kustache, ' church of, Paris, 

259 
Saint-Florent-sur-Loire, church of, 63 
St Gall, monastery of, 43 
Sainte-Genevieve, school of, 135 
Saint-Germain, faubourg, Paris, 322, 

354, 356, 381 
Saint-Germain-des-Pres, abbey of, 58 
St Helena, 545, 552, 567 
Saint-Hilaire, church of, Poitiers, 

29 
Saint-Jean-d'Acre, 108 n., no, 527. 

See also Akka 
Saint- Just, Louis- Antoine de, 508, 

509, 514, 516, 518 
St Kitts, 462 

Sainte Ligue, the — see League 
Saint-L6, 160 
St Louis — see Louis IX 
St Louis, Conference of, 353-354 
St Louis, Hall of, 353 
Saint-Louis, parish of, Paris, 487 
Saint-Marceau, faubourg, Paris, 502 
St Martin of Tours, 43 
Saint-Martin of Tours, abbey of, 51 w., 

58 
Saint-Martin, faubourg, Paris, 146, 

298 
Saint-Maur-les-Fosses, Treaty of, 199- 

200, 201, 202 
Saint-Medard, cemetery of, 440-441 
Sainte-Menehould, Treaty of, 317 
St Michael, 175 
Saint-Omer, 208, 378 
Saint-Pierre, Mustache de, 161 
Saint- Pol, house of, 210 
Saint- Pol, Louis de Luxembourg, 

Count of, 210 
Saint- Quentin, battle of, 242, 264 
Saint-Raphael, 527 
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri, Count of, 

560 
Saint-Simon, Louis, Duke of, 364, 

382, 384, 385, 389 and n., 421, 422, 

423. 433. 434 



624 



INDEX 



Saint- Victor, faubourg, Paris, 298 

Saint- Victor, school of, 135 

St Vincent, island of, 462 

Saintes, battle of, 120 

Saintonge, 165, 273 

Saladin, 105, 109 

Saladin Tithe, 105 

Salian Franks, 14-15, 20, 156 

Salic I/aw, 156, 289, 302, 538 

Salisbury, Thomas de Montacute, 

Earl of, 173 
Salle des Btats, in the Tuileries, 

579 
Salle des Menus Plaisirs, Versailles, 

485, 487 
Salles, Jean-Baptiste, 514 n. 
Sallust, 43 
Salons, in the Grande Siecle, 404- 

409 ; under the Directory, 503 
Salt tax, 185, 255, 372, 476-477 
Saizbach, 377 
San Domingo, 535 
Sancerre, 279 

Sans-culottes, 502, 508, 524 
Sans-culottisme, 519 
Saracens, Charlemagne's wars with, 

35, 38 ; mentioned, 108, 114, 127 
Saragossa, battle of, 544 
Sardinia, 435, 443, 503 
Sarto, Andrea del, 260 
Satory, 569 

Satire Minippde, La, 254 
Saumur, 278, 316 
Savonarola, 224 
Savoy, 237, 243, 311, 441, 510; 

annexed by France, 577 
Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of, 

290, 293. 340 
Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of, 

242, 243 
Savoy, lyouis, Duke of, 194 
Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of, 

391, 394. 395 
Saxe, Maurice de, 444 
Saxons, 29, 31 ; Charlemagne's wars 

with, 35-36 
Saxony, 377, 443, 445, 545, 547 
Scaliger, Jules-C6sar, 248 
Scarron, Paul, 382, 406 
Sceaux, 436 
Scheldt, the, 15 
Schleswig-Hoistein, 578, 580 
Schneider, Eugene, 579 
Schola Palatina, Charlemagne's, 43 



2 R 



Scholasticism, 136-138 

Schonbrunn, Treaty of, 545 

Schwartzenberg, Karl Phillip, Prince 
von, 549 

Science, in the Grand Siecle, 413- 
414 

Scotland, 132, 158, 162, 435; France's 
alliance with, 1 50-1 51 ; Henri II 
makes an alliance with, 242 

Scott, Sir Walter, 202 

Scudery, Mile de, 405 n., 406 

Sculpture, during the Renaissance 
period, 260 

Secret Council — see Conseil d'l^tat 

Secretaries of State, lyouis XIV' s, 
368, 422, 423, 433 

Sedaine, Michel- Jean, 472 

Sedan, 338, 348 ; capitulation of, 581 

Seine, department, 57 

Seine, river, 52, 58, no, 118, 286, 
292, 295, 310 

Seine-et-Oise, 57 

Senate, under the Consulate, 530, 
53i> 533. 537. 539 ; under the 
Empire, 550 ; recommends the 
establishment of the Second Em- 
pire, 571 

Seneca, 43 

Senecey, Baron of, 319 

Senegal, 462 

Seneschal, the, at the French Court, 
117 

Senez, Jean IV Soanen, Bishop of, 
440 

Senlis, 51 

Senlis, Treaty of, 222 

Senones, 2 

Sens, 187 

Sepet, M., 122 n. 

Sepmaine, La, of du Bartas, 253 

Septimania, 46 

Sequani, 5 

Serfs, in the feudal system, 73-74 

Seven Years' War, 445-447, 462, 463, 
501 

Sevigne, Mme de, 370, 389 

Sforza, house of, 226 

Sforza, Francesco, 237 

Shakespeare, William, 169, 178, 251 n. 

Shelley, P. B., 521 w. 

Sicambrian lycague, 14 w. 

Sichel, Edith, 238 n. 

Sicilian Vespers, 147, 223 n. 

Sicily, 147, 223, 226, 435, 442 

625 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Sidcle de Louis XIV, Le, of Charles 

Perrault, 410 
Siena, 247 
Sierck, 349 
Sierra I/eone, 462 
Sieyes, Emmanuel- Joseph, Count, 

485 n., 494, 528-529, 530, 531 
Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, 22, 25 
Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian 

Franks, 19 
Sigismund, Archduke, 205 
Silesia, 443, 445 
Simon IV de Montfort, 115 
' Sixteen, the,' 284, 286, 293, 295, 

300-301, 305-306, 312 
Sixth Coalition, 549-550 
Sixtus V, Pope, 284, 299 
Slavs, 31 

Sluis, battle of, 159 
Smallpox, the epidemic of, in 1711, 

400^ 
Smolensk, 548 
Socialism, 572 

Socialists, 564, 565, 566, 573 
Soisson^, city, 16, 43, 321, 502 
Soissons, kingdom of , 20 
Soissons Cathedral, 143 
Soissons, Jean II de Nesle, Count of, 

124 
Soissons, I^ouis of Bourbon II, Count 

of, 337 

Somme, department, 567 

Somme, river, 16, 198, 199, 292 

Sorbon, Robert de, 135 

Sorbonne, the, 135, 248, 249, 286, 
295, 298, 415, 416, 428, 440, 458 ; 
hostility of, to the Reformation, 
266 

Sorel, Agnes, 191, 194 

Sorel, Albert, 456, 461 

Sorel, Charles, 406 

Soubise, Benjamin de Rohan, Seig- 
neur de, 330, 331 

Soubise, Charles de Rohan, Prince of, 
446 

Soult, Marshal, 545, 546 

Southampton, 169 

Spain. I. The country, 5, 12, 29, 30, 
135, 147, 291, 346, 406, 560, 574 ; 
Charlemagne invades, 38 ; Fran- 
9ois I a prisoner in, 234 ; I^ouis 
XVIII's invasion of, 556. II. The 
State, 196, 233, 279, 320, 324, 335, 
349, 350, 376, 380, 390, 433, 438, 

626 



440, 532, 547 ; France gains ter- 
ritory from, 210 ; Henri II and, 
242 ; Catherine de Medicis and, 
276 ; helps the Iveague against 
Henri IV, 296-307 ; intrigues .^^ 
against Henri IV, 310, 311, 312 ; flj 
Marie de Medicis and, 315-316; * 
Richelieu and, 329-330, 331, 338, 
339-340, 341 ; invades France and 
is defeated, 348 ; recovers territory 
from France, 360 ; sues for peace — 
the Treaty of Westphalia, 361 ; 
in the War of Devolution, 374- 
375 ; in the Grand Alliance of 
The Hague, 377-378 ; the Vv^ar of 
the Spanish Succession, 392-400 ; 
war with (i 718-19), 434-436 ; in 
the War of the Polish Succession, 
441-442 ; in the War of the 
Austrian Succession, 443 ; the 
Family Compact with, 446, 447 ; 
joins a coalition against France, 
510 ; recognizes the Republican 
Government, 519 ; the Peninsular 
War, 544-545, 546 ; in the Fifth 
Coalition, 545 ; in the Sixth Coali- 
tion, 549 ; and the Mexican War, 
577 ; and the origin of the Franco- 
Prussian War, 580 

Spanish March, the, 38 

Spectator, the, 473 n. 

Spenser, Edmund, 278 n. 

Stael, Mme de, 461 n. 

StafFarde, battle of, 391 

Stanhope, James, Barl, 434 

Stanislaus I of Poland, 438, 441, 442 

States- General, 201-202, 215, 228, 
229, 282, 285, 293, 296, 301, 302, 
317, 320, 326, 354, 471, 475 ; 
beginning of, 150 ; growth in 
influence of, 154, 187-188, 190 ; 
of 1484, the first really national 
Assembly, 217-220 ; never con- 
vened by Fran9ois I, 241 ; of 
1560, 270 ; of 1614, 318-320 ; ig- 
nored by Richelieu, 343 ; efforts 
to revive. 464-465, 467-468 ; the 
Third Estate demands increased 
representation in, 485 ; the meet- 
ing of 1789, 485-488 

States- Provincial, 190 

Steenkerke, battle of, 391 

Stephen, King of England, 92 

Stephen II, Pope, 34 



INDEX 



Stephen of Blois, 84 

Strassburg, 49, 380, 392, 398, 502 n, 

567 
Strassburg Cathedral, 439 
Strauss, D., F., 408 n. 
Stuart, house of, 374, 391 
Subinfeudation, 69, 72 
Suessiones, 16 
Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, 

173. 178 

Suffren, Pierre-Andr^, 462 

Suger, Abbe of Saint-Denis, 89, 90, 
98, lOI 

Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, Duke 
of. Baron of Rosny, 299 n., 309- 
310, 312, 316, 317, 318 n., 371 

Superintendent of Finances, the 
office abolished by lyouis XIV, 369 

Suresnes, 302 

Swabia, Duke of, 106, 107 

Sweden, 292, 375, 376, 377, 445 ; in 
the Third Coalition, 541 ; in the 
Fourth Coalition, 542 ; in the 
Sixth Coalition, 549 

Swiss, 194, 205, 206, 207, 228, 230, 
231, 284, 285, 488, 503 

Switzerland, 38, 206, 248, 267, 547, 
560, 566 

S^'^agrius, 16 

Syria, 98, 128, 129, 527 

System, the Continental (' the Block- 
ade'), 543-544. 545, 547, 548 

' System,' lyaw's, 424-432, 437 

Tacitus, ii, 14 n., 40 

Taille perpetuelle, increased by I^ouis 

XI, 197, 215 ; Colbert's reforms 

and the taille, 372 ; the clergy and 

nobility exempt from, 476 n. ; 

mentioned, 475 
Taillebourg, battle of, 120 
Taine, Hippolyte, 455 n., 470, 474 n., 

476 
Talbot, John, Earl of Shrewsbury, 

178 
Talleyrand- P^rigord, Charles-Maurice 

de, 492, 539, 541, 545, 554 
Tallien, Jean-I^ambert, 515 
Tarn, department, 114 n. 
Tartars, 129 
Tavannes, Gaspard de Saul de, 274, 

278 n. 
Taxation, imposed to meet the 

expenses of the Second Crusade, 



99; the salt tax, 185, 255, 374, 
476-477 ; the feudal nobility de- 
prived of the right of taxation, 
192 ; lyouis XI increases, 197, 
215 ; the taille perpetuelle, 197, 
215, 372, 475, 476 n. ; the States- 
General of 1484 and, 220 ; reduced 
by lyouis XII, 229 ; increased by 
Francois I, 242 ; the vicious 
system of Henri IV' s reign re- 
formed by Sully, 309-310 ; the 
paulette, 318 ; badly administered 
by Richelieu, 344, 351 ; the Sieur 
d'J^mery's extortion, 352 ; the Par- 
liament of Paris opposes !]^mery's 
taxation, 353 ; the condition of, 
in Colbert's time, and his reforms, 
371, 381 ; increased by the War 
of the Spanish Succession, 400 ; 
the taxes farmed out to Ivaw's 
Company, 427 ; Turgot's reforms 
in, 459 ; the corvee, 459, 461, 476- 
477 ; Necker's reforms, 461 ; Ca- 
lonne's scheme, 464-465 ; Brienne's 
edicts and the fall of the Old 
Regime, 465-468 ; under the Old 
Regime, 475-477 ; the Physio- 
crats and, 478 ; changes in, effected 
under the Constitution of 1791, 
493 ; land tax imposed under the 
Second Republic, 565-566 

Taxe des aises, 353 

Taxe du toise, 353 

Tegner, Esaias, 521 n. 

Temple, the, Paris, 504, 505, 528 n. 

Temple, Sir William, 375 

* Tennis-court oath,' 487, 502 

Terray, Abbe, 451, 453 

Terreur Blanche, 519 

Terreur Rouge, 519 

Terror, the — see Reign of Terror 

Testament politique, Le, 341-342 

Testry, 26, 28 

Teutones, 5 

Teutonic Knights, 149 

Teutonic tribes, settlement of, in 
Gaul, 12, 27 

Thabor, Mount, 527 

Theodebald, King of Austrasia, 25 

Theodebert I, King of Austrasia, 25 

Theodebert II, King of Austrasia, 

25 
Theoderic, or Thierri, I, King of 
Austrasia, 20, 25 



627 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Theoderic, or Thierri, II, King of 

Burgundy and of Anstrasia, 25 
TMot, Catherine, 517 
Thermidorian reaction, the, 517-518 
Thibaut II, Count of Champagne, 

97 
Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne, 

113, 120, 139 

Thierri — se& Theodoric 

Thierry, J acques - Nicolas - Augustin , 

54, 318 n., 319 n. 

Thiers, I^ouis-Adolphe, 559, 561, 581 

Thionville (Diedenhof en) , 349 

Third Coalition, 540-541 

Third Estate, 188, 301, 473 ; emer- 
gence of, as a political force, 150 ; 
I<ouis XI and, 214 ; in the States- 
General of 1484, 219-220 ; position 
of, underFran9oisI, 241 ; demands- 
religious toleration, 270 ; opposes 
Protestantism, 282 ; in the States- 
General of 1614, 318, 319, 320 ; 
representative only of the hauU 
bourgeoisie, 318 n. ; growth in 
political intelligence of, 319 ; de- 
mands enlarged representation in 
the States-General, 485 ; in the 
States-General of 1789, 486-488 ; 
constitutes itself an Assembl^e 
Nationale, 486; chief gainer under 
the Constitution of 1791, 507 

Thirty Years' War, 324, 340-341, 
348-350 

Thomas de Marie, 90 

Thou, Fran9ois-Auguste de, 338 

Thou, J acques- Auguste de, 338 

Thuringians, 15, 28 

Thyard, Pontus de, 252 

Ticonderoga, battle-of, 446 

Tifernas, Gregorio, 246 

Tilley, A. A., 248 n. 

Tilsit, Peace of, 542, 543, 548 

Tinchebrai, battle of, 91 

Tobacco, 427 

Tobago, 462 

Tocqueville, Alexis - Charles - Henri 
de, 470, 573 

Tolbiac, ij n. 

Tolosa, 13 

Toul, 242 

Toul, Bishopric of, 350 

Toulon, 512, 515, 525, 527 

Toulouse, city, 13, 29, 115, I97, 272, 
278 

628 



Toulouse, county, 56, 68, 114 n., 115, 

145 
Toulouse, Guillaume Taillefer III, 

Count of, 61 
Toulouse, I^ouis- Alexandre, Count of, 

435-436 
Toulouse, Raymond IV, Count of, 

83 
Toulouse, Raymoi^id VI, Count of, 

114-115 
Toulouse, Raymond VII, Count of, 

115-116, 120 
Touraine, 102, iii, 121, 172 
Tournaments, condemned by I^ouis 

IX, 122 ; revived by Philippe III, 

145 

Tournay, 15, 19, iii 

Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de, 414 

Tours, 198, 201, 218, 228, 292, 293, 
300 

Toussaint-Louverture, Dominique- 
Fran9ois, 535 

Tower of I^ondon, 540 

Towns, the, and the communal move- 
ment, 92-96 ; growth of, 97 ; 
Philippe- Auguste and, 11 7-1 18 ; 
Ivouis IX interferes with, 125-126 ; 
growth of, and the Renaissance, 
134-135 ; the evolution of, and 
Gothic architecture, 144 ; represen- 
tatives of, summoned to Philippe 
IV' s Council, 150 ; I^ouis XI' s 
dominance over, 214. See also 
Communal movement 

Toxandria, 15 

Trafalgar, battle of, 541 

' Traits des Dames, le,' 236 

Tremouille, Irouis II, Sire de la, 221, 
222 

Treves, 11, 13, 205, 499 

Treves, Klector of, 361 

Trial by ordeal, 40 ; by combat, 

i^^ forbidden by I,ouis IX, 122 ; by 

■^ jury in criminal cases, introduced 

K, by the Constitution of 1791, 493 

Trianon, 381 

Trianon, Grand, 412 ; Petit, 464 

Tribunal, Revolutionary, 511, 512, 
514. 515, 516, 517, 518 

Tribunat, under the Consulate, 530, 
531. 534. 537; suppressed under 
the Empire, 539 

Trincomalee, 462 

Triomphe.de Foi of du Bartas, 253 



INDEX 



Triple Alliance (1668), 375, 376 ; 

(1717). 434 
Tristan THermite, 212 
Trivulce, Mar^chal de, 230 
Trois-]^veches, 242, 243 
Trois Mousquetaires, Les, 335 n. 
Tronchet, FranQois-Denis, 509 
Troubadours, 61-62, 138-139 
Trouveres, 139 

Troyes, 137, 178, 187, 278, 467 
Troyes, Treaty of, 171, 172 
' Truce of God,' the, 65-66, 80 
Tudela, battle of, 545 
Tuileries, the, 259, 491, 502, 503, 517, 

520, 524, 539, 540 
Tunis, 129 
Turenne, Henri de la Tour d'Au- 

vergne, Viscount of, 349, 358, 359- 

361, 375, 376, 377, 378, 389 n., 

391. 396 
Turgot, Anne-Robert- Jacques, 458- 

461, 462, 463, 474, 478, 480 
Turin, 252, 397, 441 
Turks, 78, 79, 82, 99, 195, 215, 236, 

237. 527. 557 
Turner, S. K., 24 n. 
Tuscany, 393, 442 
Tusculans of Cicero, 247 «,, 250 
Two Sicilies, the, 394, 532 
Tyrrell, Father, 122 w. 

Ui,M, 541 

Ultramontane party, 318, 339, 574 

' Ultras,' 555. 557, 558 

Unam Sanctum, papal bull, 148 

Unigenitus, papal bull, of 1713, 417 ; 

of 1730, 440 
Union Catholique — see I<eague, the 
United Provinces, 376, 377, 378 
United States, 462, 559, 577, 578 
Urban II, Pope, 80, 81, 82 
Urf 6, Honore d' , 406 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 400, 419 n., 433, 

434. 435, 462 
Utrecht, Bishopric of, 28 

Vadier, Marc-Guillaume- Alexis, 519 

Valence, 194, 527 

Valencia, battle of, 544 

Valenciennes, 361, 513 

Valli^re, Fran5oise- Louise de la, 382 

Valmy, 505 

Valognes, 160 

Valois, county of, 104 



Valois, house of, 156, 225, 230, 245, 
261, 286, 287, 288 

Valois, Charles, Count of, 156, 157, 
287 

Valois, Marguerite of, wife of Henri 
IV, 311 

Valtelline valley, 339 

Varaville, battle of, 63 

Varennes, 495 

Vassy, 271 

Vatican, 37, 80 n. 

Vauban, Sebastien le Prestre de, 389, 
391, 476 n., 477 

Vaucouleurs, 175, 176 

Vaux, 369 

Vendue, insurrection in, 510, 513, 
519 ; new rising in, 528 ; men- 
tioned, 560 

Vendome, town, 292 

Venddme, C6sar, Duke of, 307, 317, 

351 
Vendome, lyouis- Joseph, Duke of, 

396, 399 
Veneti, Gallic tribe, 6 
Venetians, 226, 227 
Venette, Jean de, 186 «. 
Venice, 109, 113, 190, 224, 228, 235, 

280, 292, 431 
Venloo, 396 
Vercingetorix, 6-8, 9 
Verden, 35 
Verdun, 242, 504 
Verdun, Bishopric of, 350 
Verdun, Treaty of, 49-50, 53, 54 
Vergil, II, 43, 247 n., 252 
Vergniaud, Pierre-Victumien, 498, 

518, 523 
Vermandois, county, 68, 104 
Vermandois, Albert I, Count of, 60 
Vermandois, Hugues, Count of, 82 
Vernon, town, no 
Versailles, 336, 381, 384, 403, 408, 

412, 449, 456, 463, 466, 467, 473, 

485, 487, 488, 491, 569 
Versailles, Treaty of {1783), 462 
Vervins, Treaty of, 307, 311 
V^zelay, 98, 106 
Victoria, Queen, 573 
Vie de Bayard, 254 
Vie des Dames galantes, 254 
Vie des Hommes illustres, Brantdme's, 

254 
Vies des Hommes illustres, Amyot's, 
251 n. 

629 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



Vienna, 280, 396, 541, 545. 54^ 

Vienna, Treaty of {1738), 442 

Vienne, river, 20 

Vienne, Council of (13 12), 149 

Vienne, Jean de, 1 60-1 61 

Vieux Cordelier, Le, 515 

Vilaines, Pierre de, 190 

Villafranca, Treaty of, 577 

Villars, Claude-Louis-Hector, Duke 

of, 396, 399, 400, 441-442 
Villaviciosa, battle of, 399 
Villehardouin, Geoffroi de, 142, 143 
Villeins, 72-73 
Villele, Jean - Baptiste - S^raphin - 

Joseph, Count of, 556, 557 
Villeroy, Fran9ois de Neufville, Duke 

of, 397 
Villeroy, Nicolas de Neufville, Seig- 
neur de, 316 
Vilna, 548, 549 
Vimie|:a, battle of, 544 
Vincennes, 124, 125, 171, 354, 358, 

360, 381, 421, 536 
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, of lyan- 

guet, 255 
Vingtieme, tax, 475 
Vinsauf, Geoffroy de, 109 n. 
Vionville, battle of, 581 
Visconti, house of, 226 
Visconti, Valentina, 226 
Visigoths, 12, 14, 16, 18 
Visio S. Eucherii, 31 w. 
Vistula, 542 
Vitry, Nicolas de L'Hopital, Marquis 

of, 322 
Vitry-le-Fran9ois, 97 
Vitry-sur-Seine, 490 
Vivonne, Catherine de, Marquise of 

Rambouillet, 404-^405 
Voiture, Vincent, 406, 409 
Voltaire, 80, 133, 297 n., 342 n., 348, 

357. 366, 380. 441. 444 w., 452 n., 

460, 472 ; his work and principles, 

480-482 ; his antagonism to the 

Church, 481 ; contrasted with 

Rousseau, 481-482 
Vraie Histoire comique de Francion 

of Charles Sorel, 406 

Waei., 233 

Wagram, battle of, 545 
Waldenses, 240 

Wallenstein, Albrecht Eusebius von, 
340 



Walter the Penniless, 82 

War of the Austrian Succession, 442- 

444 
War of the Cleves Succession, 315 

War of Devolution, 374-375 

War of Independence, American, 

France's part in, 462-463 
War of the Polish Succession, 441-442 
War of the Spanish Succession, 392- 

400 
War of the Three Henries, 284-285 
War of the Two Joans, 160, 161, 163, 

164 
Wars of Religion, 244, 258, 261-307, 

447 
Warsaw, 441 
Warwick, Richard de Beauchamp, 

Karl of, 182 
Warwick, Richard Neville, Earl of, 

203 
Washington, George, 445, 465 
Waterloo, battle of, 551, 558 
Weights and measures, regulated by 

Philippe V, 154 ; uniformity of, 

secured by the Constitution of 1791, 

493 ; standard metrical system 

established by the Convention, 520 
Weissehburg, Alsace, 438 
Weissenburg, battle of, 581 
Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 544, 549. See 

Wellington, Duke of 
Wellington, Duke of, 549, 551, 552 
Werth, John of, 349 
West Indies, 373, 447 
Westphalia, 350, 542-543. 545, 547 
Westphalia, Treaty of, 341 n., 350, 

356, 361. 378, 380 
White Ship, the, 92 
White Terror, the, 555 
Widukind, 35 
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, 

408 n. 
Wilhelmshohe, 581 
WilHam the Conqueror, 63, 64, 70, 

71, 91, no 
William II of England, 64, 91 
WilUam I, Emperor of Germany, 580- 

581 
William Clito, 91, 92 
William of Malmesbury, 80 n. 
William, Duke of Normandy — see 

WilHam the Conqueror 
WiUiam of Orange, 377, 378, 379, 

380, 390, 391, 392, 395 



63( 



INDEX 



William, Prince, son of Henry I of 

England. 92 
William of Tyre, 79, 80 n. 
Willibrord, 28 
Witstett, Truce of, 315 
Wolfe, General James, 447 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 233, 235 
Women, admitted to the exercise 

of feudal rights, 10 1 ; rise of 

influence of, in political affairs, 

241 
Wordsworth, William, 521 n. 
Worms, city, 248 
Wrangel, Count Karl Gustav, 349 



Wtirtemberg, 547 

YoNNK, the, 170, 295 
York, Richard, Duke of, 182 
Young, Arthur, 474 n. 
Ypres, 415 

Yuste, monastery of, 242 
Yvetot, 69 

Zacharias, Bishop of Rome, 31 
Zara, 113 
Zulpich, 17 M. 
Zurich, Treaty of, 577 
Zwingli, Ulrich, 267 



■'% 63^ 








00022b3a3H6 






';Kvt, 



':^in^\Vifi-'a:rx\Si^:. 



.x:.»:;;ti>.cr: 



;n'i';*";i.,f< 



fK:n«- 












lit. f^>-. 



.VI iL: 



,mtt 






l^K 



/;ji.a:ti: 



■".■4 ' i, . l■•^ . .... 8 -*'<■-. 'i •,--« .'tr..^jt»v«»>S»'' 










.4.. ,V ^' .i>*, .. Ly*» f'.*.* •»*-. ■ 'irWl***^ 



-z-i: 










.:.,., ,'„% ■:■■•'.•■• .•'.'I' ■jt.aor^nL-.^H 






■.;r".f«trf: 



A;rv«i.' 



..",'iaw;;,- 



v«ft 










